


Out in the Cold

by Aetherschreiber



Series: Marvel in the Aether [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. References, Canon Compliant, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gap Filler, Gen, POV First Person, Whump, heavy use of headcannon, where the heck was Hawkeye?!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-17 23:45:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 42,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5889742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aetherschreiber/pseuds/Aetherschreiber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone keeps asking, so, fine, I'll spill. What was I doing the day SHIELD fell to Hydra? It's not like you all don't know I'm the Hawkeye, thanks to all those files getting leaked onto the web. So, here's the way things went for me that day... (rated for some violence and Clint's potty mouth. And yes, there is whump.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something funny is going on around SHIELD. Everything explodes when Director Fury is reported dead. Hill recruits Hawkeye to help find those responsible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PROLOGUE
> 
> So, okay.
> 
> This looks bad.
> 
> I mean, how else can it look, right? Two of the heroes of New York, Avengers no less, chasing after each other through the streets of DC and trying to knock out each others' teeth.
> 
> With extreme prejudice. Seriously, it's palpable. I'm gonna have the bruises to prove it.
> 
> But for once, it's actually not as bad as it looks.
> 
> No, really!
> 
> Okay, okay, I know, that sound of a cracking rib kinda says otherwise. So I guess, for Cap it's not as bad as it looks. Not so sure about me. But, that's what I get for mixing it up with a super-soldier in hand-to-hand in the name of keeping cover.
> 
> I suppose I aught-ta back up a bit, here. Bet you want to know why I'm flailing my fists at Captain America while he beats the snot outta me. Well, given everything that's been going on, you'd probably be right not to listen to a word I say. But, you gotta believe me, I'm trying to warn him.
> 
> I mean, I'm not an idiot. If I wanted him dead, I'd do it from a rooftop. That's where my skill is. Me, a normal goob with a bow and arrow (though, admittedly, pretty freaking brilliant at it), going hand-to-hand with Steve Rogers is just plain stupid. I mean, really. The guy survived seventy years frozen in ice. Ice!
> 
> But anyways. Backing up...

Looking back, I guess it all really started with the _Lemurian Star_.

I didn't go on that Op, but Natasha and I had just been recalled to the Triskellion following a mission, pretty suddenly. Before I knew it, she and Cap were whisked off to the cargo ship. The mission was called a success, but I know Nat well enough to know that something went sideways on the op. It was pretty clear that she and Cap were not too happy with each other, either. Curiosity nibbled at the edges of my brain, but I know better than to put Tasha in the position of asking her about an op she goes on and I don't.

I tried exactly once. The bruise lasted a week and turned interesting colors.

Anyway, after they came back from the _Lemurian Star_ , things just got hinky.

Sitwell had been my handler for most of my ops since... well, since Coulson. I gotta admit that I didn't much like the guy. He tended to have a stick the size of a redwood up his ass most of the time. While Coulson had allowed me some leeway to make calls when I needed to, Sitwell was more of a micro-manager. He never quite seemed to get that I could see things he couldn't, out in the field. It drove me up the futzing wall. Especially since it never seemed like he really had the brains to match his level-eight clearance. Damned toady.

But after Tasha and Cap rescued him from the cargo ship, he started acting... I dunno... squirrely.

I met Tasha as she was leaving her debreifing with Director Fury. It wasn't coincidental. I had heard it was a rescue op and if it had been important enough to send the super-soldier, I wanted to make sure that my best friend was in good shape. I know, tongues would sometimes wag around SHIELD. But those people didn't have a clue. That would have been like dating a little, more deadly, sister. No, Nat's one of the few people I trust completely, to know everything about me. And not just with my life, either. She's one of two. Used to be three, but now it's two, since Loki put his scepter through...

Well, at any rate, in our line of work, that sort of a relationship is more precious than gold. So you protect it. Tasha looks after me and I look after her. End of story.

"How'd the op go?" I asked, pushing off of the wall I had been leaning against as she trailed out of the secure room just after Fury and Cap. The latter two went down the hallway, both looking rather irate at each other. Whatever it was, not my circus, not my monkeys.

"You know better than to ask, Clint," Nat snapped back at me, her arms crossing over her chest and her face taking on _that_ look; the one that warned me not to push or I'd not be long for this world.

Remember how I said I know Tasha well enough to know when something went sideways without needing to ask for details? This was one of those times. Her response immediately put me on edge. Normally, when I ask that, she says something like "all objectives achieved" or "mission success" and we can leave it at that. The fact that she didn't feel like she could say that...

Yeah. Not good.

Immediately, my hands went up, palms out, in a placating gesture. "Hey, no details! It's good! It's blue jello night at the cafeteria. Wanna catch a bite?"

"Shower first," she replied, hardly breaking stride, "meet you there in twenty." She continued on her way down the corridor toward the women's dormitories.

Sitwell came out of the secure room last, looking haggard and exhausted. Still he adjusted his tie in some sort of weird need to look crisp and clean, despite everything.

"Sir," I said, giving an acknowledging nod.

Sitwell gave a sour noise from the back of his throat. He continued on his way, down the hallway in the same direction a Nat. I thought this was funny, since I figured he'd want to clean himself up even more than Tasha did and the men's dormitories were the other direction. The guy could really be a priss. I just figured he had other stuff to take care of, first. Probably what made him so damned cranky.

With nothing else to do, I decided to head to the cafeteria right away. I liked choosing where we sat. There was this little mezzanine area, a floor up, that had a nice little corner where you could see the whole place and it was usually pretty empty and quiet. It was my favorite table. You could see everyone coming and going. When Tasha picked the table, it was always down on the main floor, back in a dark, little cramped corner with only one way in or out. Just the difference between us, I guess. I didn't hate her table and she didn't hate mine, but mostly it was because the Triskelion was safe ground, for the most part. On an op together, we would usually have to discuss the merits of each type before entering a place.

Grabbing a piece of pizza that had been under the heat lamps a little too long, a dish of blue jello, and a soda, I headed up the stairs to the mezzanine and toward my table. To my surprise Bobbi Morse was sitting at a table nearby, just polishing off a Reuben and chips.

"Clint," she greeted, "I heard you came back suddenly yesterday."

"Yeah," I replied, "Sitwell got himself in deep and Fury needed Tasha to help Cap bail out his sorry ass."

Bobbi chuckled around a potato chip, giving a wry grin. "I wonder why they still let him out in the field," she said, with barely contained mirth.

I propped a foot up on the chair opposite her by the table, returning her smile with a sarcastic one of my own. "Expendable?" I said. She chuckled again.

Bobbi and I go back quite a ways. We had a... well... I guess you could call it a fling when I first joined up with SHIELD, before I met Laura. It didn't last long, though, since... well, workplace dating just gets weird at this place. For about three months, we shared, uh, _moments_ when we overlapped between missions, but the pillow talk was more than a little awkward. It quickly devolved into yelling, sniping, and even throwing things at each other on occasion. So we mutually agreed that it just didn't work and friend-zoned each other. We've gotten along a lot better since.

"Haven't seen you in a while," she said, "how's your world?"

"Ehh, complicated," I replied with a shrug, "and a weird feeling it's going to get more so before the week's out. Been a while since I've been recalled as suddenly as I was yesterday."

"Yeah, I got recalled, too," she said, "so did a bunch of level sevens. You get the feeling something big is about to go down?"

Thoughtfully, I cast a gaze out over the rest of the cafeteria, to the people I could see below. Something was off. Normally you'd see about a half-and-half mix of agents buried in reading reports or enjoying some mutual down-time with each other and chatting. But today was different. Oddly higher number of guys sitting alone for no reason at all. Heads were down, but not over a report or anything and several people seemed to be shoveling their food into their mouths as quickly as possible. It was as if a larger than normal number of agents were avoiding each other. It's the type of thing you only notice from above.

"Maybe," I said thoughtfully.

Just then, I spotted Nat walking in and heading toward the food line. She spotted me up on the mezzanine and gave a nod, then went to pick up a meal. While I waited for her, Bobbi and I exchanged a few more words. I don't remember exactly what we talked about. Something about knowing how to get in contact with each other in bad times. We had had a lot of exchanges like that in the past.

And then, in walked Sitwell, only a minute or so behind Tasha. He still looked like he hadn't been to put himself together, which was weird. I mean, seriously, the guy's a futzing neat-freak! I kid you not, he carries wet-wipes with him in the field.

Those things are flammable, by the way.

As Tasha brought her food up the stairs to the mezzanine, I watched Sitwell trail along a bit behind her and head to one of the tables just under the mezzanine. Meanwhile, Bobbi put the last bite of her Reuben into her mouth and chewed as she cleaned up her garbage.

"Well, I gotta catch some kip," she said, "got a mission briefing early tomorrow."

"Catch you later," I said, moving off toward my favorite table.

Bobbi and Nat passed each other at the very top of the stairs.

"Widow," said Bobbi.

"Mockingbird," Nat replied.

It was their usual cold interaction. It was hard to say what it was that was between them, but they always seemed only to tolerate each other. Weird thing was, when I asked Nat about it once, she professed that she thought Bobbi was trustworthy and in general one of the good guys. Bobbi seemed to think the same of Tasha. But for some reason, they don't get along. Sometimes, I think they only put up with each other when they have to because they're both my friends.

Women. I am so glad I am off the market.

Tasha came over to the table and dropped her tray onto it with a clatter. She plopped into the chair opposite me and began tearing into the gyro she had picked up.

"You okay?" I asked, sliding my soda across to her to take a swing from the straw. She did so and then slid it back.

"Men are jerks," she said.

"All men or do I get a pass from your wrath?"

Tasha sighed and looked back down to her gyro, picking out a piece of meat with her fork and pushing it around a bit. "All right, fine," she said, "Steve's a jerk." She tore into the gyro some more.

I couldn't help but stare at her and blink. "I better check my watch. I think we jumped back in time to high school," I blurted out.

The look she shot me spoke volumes. Ice. Thin.

"Okay, care to elaborate?"

"Steve's all pissed off that Fury gave me orders outside his mission," Tasha said, "orders he didn't know anything about. He's treating me like it's my fault I had another objective."

Ah. A clash of generations. Cap came from a time when secrets weren't as compartmentalized as they are now. He'd been chafing under Fury's command style since he came out of the ice as a result. In contrast, Nat came from a background where knowing what you were told and no more and trusting the system was as natural as breathing.

Yeah, I'm as surprised as you are that the two of them hadn't butted heads before this.

Still, things were tense enough as it was around the Triskelion without the crappy morale that having two Avengers bitching at each other would cause. So, I set about diffusing the bomb, a little.

"Well, look at it from his side, Tasha," I said, "Fury sent him in on a rescue mission and didn't tell him that other stuff was going on. It was his op and some objectives were kept from him. How would you react if I went off the plan on one of your ops because I had another objective you didn't know anything about?"

"Pissed, but I'd get over it," she replied.

"Really?" I said, giving her a skeptic's stare. "Tikrit?"

Tasha sighed again, leaning back and letting her eyes roll skyward. "All right, fine, you got a point. You never miss your mark, do you Hawkeye?"

"Nope," I said, digging into my jello. Then I leaned in and lowered my voice. "By the way, you pick up a tail while you were away?"

"What, Sitwell?" she asked, in kind. "Dunno what that's about. It is a pretty obvious trailing job, isn't it?"

"Something have him rattled, you think? This whole place seems on edge since you guys got back." I polished off the last of my blue jello and started in on the pizza.

Nat reached for my soda again and took another pull from the straw, looking at the table in thought. It was that same look she had when she was trying to make up her mind about something; when loyalties were being weighed against each other. It took only a few seconds before she had made up her mind and her eyes shot up to meet mine.

The enormity of that was like running into a brick wall at sixty miles per hour. Normally, she would give a sigh, her eyes would drift off elsewhere, and she would mumble something about it being "just stuff from the op, probably." She would let me know she knows more, but she would be keeping her secrets like a good agent. This time, however, the loyalty she chose was to me over SHIELD.

So, you know, nothing ominous there...

"Fury had me retrieve some data from the _Lemurian Star_ ," she blurted out, her voice impossibly low, now, "Sitwell's been acting weird since he found out. Something big is happening, Clint. I don't like it."

Swallowing hard, I nodded slowly, my eyes locked with Tasha's. A long, uncomfortable silence passed between us. "Okay," I said around a sigh, "okay."

Have I mentioned that I don't really consider myself to be an eloquent man? Tasha has told me differently, but I think she's full of shit.

"Okay," I said one more time, desperately trying to whack at the broken record that my mouth seemed to have become.

Nat's eyes left mine and she shook her head, dropping her gaze back to the table. "I shouldn't have told you that," she said, "that was stupid."

"No, no," I whispered back, "you know intel is safe with me. SHIELD needs you not being a basket case. So don't do that. You haven't told anyone. You know I got your back. You know it, Tasha. Just like I know you've got mine."

Nat dragged her eyes back to meet mine again. "Always," she said, "I just can't shake this feeling that something is about to go down. Just... watch your back, okay?"

"You know it," I replied, "and that goes for you, too."

We stuck around for a while longer, just talking about stuff that didn't matter, catching up. Nat needed the time to decompress and we just joked around like two friends for a bit. Sad truth of this job is that conversations like the one we had just had are never far from your thoughts, even when you're otherwise having a good time.

Nat crashed pretty hard after that and it wasn't long before she just plain needed some shut-eye. To make sure she made it there, I walked her back to the women's dormitory, then said my goodbyes for the night.

Sure enough, when I turned around to head back to the men's side, there was Sitwell just rounding the corner, trying to act like he was just passing by and not really succeeding. I don't know if it was just because I didn't want to deal with him right then or because of some kind of professional courtesy, but I continued on without reacting. Sure enough, he started back in the same direction as me.

Great. I had picked up Nat's tail. Lucky me. That meant that he thought Nat told me something she shouldn't have. I mean, she did, but that's besides the point! Watching your agents is a part of a handler's job. But assuming the worst of them? That's just plain rude!

Now, I worked with the guy, but to be perfectly frank, there's a reason I was the specialist and he was the handler; I'm better'n him. Four sharp turns, an elevator ride, and a leap into an air vent later and he had no clue where I went.

Another funny thing about this job is that you never feel completely safe, no matter where you are. Take the Triskelion, for example. It was the main center for all SHIELD activity. More missions began and ended there than any other SHIELD facility. Sometimes you'd run missions from the Hub or the Treehouse, but the big ones all operated out of the Triskelion. So if there was one place where an agent should feel safe, it was the Triskelion, right?

Almost every high-level specialist had a bolt-hole located somewhere in the place, somewhere they could hide out and lay low if they ever felt the need. Natasha knew where mine was and I knew where hers was and Bobbi had given me hints as to where hers was. The place was big enough that it was riddled with specialist bolt-holes and yet we would almost never run into each other.

Since the place is gone, there's no sense trying to keep its location a secret. My hide-out was on the fifty-third floor, behind the AC maintenance, and was only accessible through the air vents. It was almost completely surrounded by metal, so no transmissions in or out; radio, trackers, bugs... all useless inside a Faraday cage. I had a spliced hard-line connection and a scrubbed laptop for those times I needed a connection.

Okay, so I mostly used it to watch YouTube videos. Don't judge me.

I spent the night there. With so many damned alarm bells going off in my head, and with the information Nat had given me rattling around in my brain, I figured it was the only place I would find enough peace to get any sleep. As it was, I tossed and turned for several hours. Someone had shoved a puzzle in front of me, hadn't told me what it was supposed to look like, and had left out too many pieces.

What kind of data had Fury had Nat retrieve? Why hadn't he told Cap about that objective? And why the hell was Sitwell so damned concerned about it all?

* * *

The next day started out normal enough. I got up, left my bolt hole, showered, ate, and then headed to the armory for a little maintenance.

Yes, I said maintenance. It may not look it, but archery has quite a bit of science to it. Just like a gun or a blade, you have to do regular upkeep on the equipment if you want to know how it's going to perform. Doubly so for projectile weapons since once the ammo is in the air, it's all down to physics.

See, when it comes to arrows, you gotta know how much the shaft is going to flex when the bowstring pushes on it. You gotta test the poundage on the bow and how much the arrow is going to bend when the shot is fired. It's all because of a little thing called the archer's paradox that...

Heh. There I go again. I'm sure you don't care. Laura's always telling me that people's eyes glaze over when I start in on this stuff. She'd give me a swift elbow in the ribs if she we here right now. The internet can tell you all about it. Go look it up, sometime.

So, anyways, maintenance. That's what I was doing when Sitwell found me the next day. The guy must have casually passed by the armory six times waiting for me to be alone in there. Futzing gargoyle.

Okay, I'm so I'm speaking pretty badly of him. In point of fact, we had a pretty good working relationship. We weren't friends, or anything, but I could work with him. Mostly, these days, I look on all this with the benefit of hindsight and that's what makes me want to have put an arrow between his eyes. Even saying that, there was something about him that made my skin crawl that day when he came in to talk to me. At the time I put it down to feeling hurt that he was tailing me. I mean, he was my handler, I was supposed to be able to assume he was on the right side and he hadn't really given me any reason to think otherwise. At least, not concretely.

Yeah, I know; when it doubt, trust your instincts. I must have had that drilled into my head so that I would chant it in my sleep. And yet, I didn't listen to that little voice that day. Why? Well, plain and simple, it's because I'm screwed up.

Oh yeah. That's another thing this job does to you.

"Agent Barton," Sitwell said, approaching the workbench I had taken over, "I'd like a word with you."

"Yes, sir," I answered, not bothering to look up from my work, "what can I do for you, sir?"

"I wanted to ask you about Agent Romanoff," he replied, "I noticed you were talking to her after we got back from the _Lemurian Star_ yesterday. What is your assessment of her at the moment?"

"Assessment, sir?"

"Yes. What is her state of mind?"

I shrugged, giving a shake of my head. "She seems fine, sir," I said, "nothing out of the ordinary. She mentioned some trouble between her and Captain Rogers during the op, but nothing too out there."

"Did she mention to you what it was about?"

I gave a non-committal shrug. "Need-to-know stuff."

It wasn't entirely a lie. It _was_ need-to-know stuff that she had told me. I learned a long time ago that lies of omission went down better than straight-up lies. Easier to remember, easier to mask, easier to let the other guy draw his own conclusions.

Yeah, yeah, I know, chain of command, loyalty, orders, blah blah blah. But some loyalties exist outside of orders, above them. Nat had confided in me so that she didn't lose her marbles. I wasn't going to betray that. So yeah, I lied to Sitwell. If you got a problem with that, you come find me. We'll talk.

Apparently, Sitwell bought it, because he nodded, letting out a sigh. "And have you spoken to Captain Rogers at all?"

"No, sir," I replied, "not for a few days. There a reason you're asking?"

"The op on the _Lemurian Star_ was stressful for both of them," Sitwell replied, "and since you're close to both of them through the Avengers, I had hoped you might be able to help keep an eye on them for any signs of... fatigue."

"Fatigue, sir?"

Sitwell held up a hand as if to placate. "Don't misunderstand me," he said, "I just want to make sure that two of SHIELD's top operatives are in top condition."

I briefly considered asking him how it was possible for a super-soldier to be in anything less than peak condition, but thought better of it. The last thing I wanted was a confrontation. So, instead, I plastered a smile on my face, one of the ones I normally reserved for under-cover ops, the ones where I was feeling anything but what I was expressing.

"Of course, sir," I said, "I let you know if I see anything worrying."

Sitwell nodded, then turned on his heel and left. I went back to to maintaining my gear.

* * *

The rest of the day passed by relatively quietly. So much so that I almost began to think that maybe I was losing it and jumping at shadows. I was starting to consider a well-deserved evening out. Maybe I'd go catch a movie or a band at some dive bar. I don't get to do that sort of thing enough. I mean, geeze, I never got to see Star Wars episode three in the theater. I have a feeling it was better on the big screen.

It was right around 17:00 that I got a call on my cell. It took a second for it to register that it was my personal one, not my work one. This was the phone that few people at SHIELD knew about, the one that my wife would use to call me and that only a handful of others knew the number for. The weird part? The caller ID was blocked.

I almost didn't answer and took the battery out because alarms were sounding anew in my brain. The only people who were supposed to have this number were supposed to come up on the phone's caller ID. No one else was supposed to be able to even reach the number.

Curiosity got the better of me. Ducking into a deserted hallway, I tapped the screen to answer.

"Hello?" I said, tentatively.

"Barton, thank god!" came the voice from the other end. I immediately recognized it as belonging to Agent Maria Hill. "For a second, I was worried you wouldn't answer."

"I almost did more than that!" I replied. "How'd you get this number?"

"I know, I know," she said, "it isn't supposed to be listed in SHIELD databases, and it's not. I got it straight from Fury and committed it to memory a long time ago. There's no record. Are you at the Triskelion?"

Hill sounded on edge, nearly in a panic. Hill's another one of those people that I trust without reservation. She's honorable, reliable, loyal, smart, and a damn good agent. Something had her rattled and that couldn't be good. Whatever it was, it had prompted her to risk breaking a rather sacred trust that I had put in Fury. And given how loyal she is to Fury, it had to be something huge for her to risk it.

"Yeah."

"Leave, as soon as you can," she said, "meet me at Union Station within an hour."

"What's this about?"

"Fury's missing."

And that was when the call cut off. She didn't elaborate. She didn't need to. I knew she would be filling me in face-to-face. Whatever this was, she didn't want it in the air. And that made my blood positively run cold.

I pocketed the phone and was in motion right away. I swung by my quarters for a little extra gear, then hit the motorpool for something fast on two wheels. Motorcycles and I get along real nice, almost as well as I get along with fixed-wing aircraft. If someone ever figures out a way to combine the two, sign me up.

Seriously, Stark, you need to get on that. Avengers plus hovercycles equals awesome.

DC traffic at 17:00 is no picnic. But if you're willing to take a few chances and accept a few middle fingers, and if you have the skills, you can get through without too much trouble. I call it two-wheeler parkour.

The Triskelion is on Roosevelt Island and Union Station is just a few blocks north of the Capitol, near the other end of the Mall. I was up Constitution Avenue in about ten minutes and was on foot going into the Station three minutes later. I knew where Hill would be; near the Red Line platform. All the better to make a fast exit amid a lot of people. Weaving through the crowds of Amtrack riders and shoppers, I headed straight there and found her not too far from the escalators, leaning against the sign pillar on the side opposite the camera that was mounted on the ceiling.

"Due respect ma'am," I said in a low voice as I approached, "but what the hell?"

"Not here. Walk with me," she said, moving back up the escalators. Within short order, we had gone back outside and crossed the street to the National Postal Museum.

Why the Postal Museum? Have you ever been there? No, you haven't. The place is dead. And why wouldn't it be? If you're playing tourist, and you're able to walk a couple blocks to the Capitol, the Mall, and most of the Smithsonian, would you waste time at the Postal Museum? Be honest. The answer's no.

"What the hell happened?" I asked Hill, as soon as we were both sure that we were deep enough into the museum to be alone.

"Fury's gone dark," Hill replied.

"I assume there's more to it than that, or we wouldn't be here," I said.

"Yeah," she said, "he called me just after a meeting he had with Alexander Pierce, telling me he wanted to meet on an urgent code in three hours. He never showed. And his SUV was involved in a chase and a wreck."

"Body?" I asked with mounting dread.

"No. He's in the wind. But he left Pierce's office and came under fire. We need to find out why, now. I have an idea where he'll go, but I'll need to go dark to get there and contact him. And if Pierce is involved, the Council probably is, too."

I nodded in grim understanding. "And that means SHIELD."

"Yeah," Hill said, looking as grim as I felt, "something big is happening. I don't know what or how deep it goes. But I need eyes and ears inside SHIELD to find out. I can't say for sure, yet, but it may mean going against SHIELD command in the end."

I have a short list of people I know I can trust and who I will always back up. If Fury was in trouble, I was on his side. I owed him big-time for many reasons. Truth be told, if Fury hadn't accepted me into SHIELD, I'd probably be in prison or dead. Plus, he helped me keep my family off the grid. Get right down to it, I basically owe him my entire life. All the good parts, anyway.

"Where do we start?" I asked with a nod.

Hill handed me yet another cell phone. "Burner phone," she said, "purchased this afternoon under an alias, new number, one number programmed and it's to a phone in my pocket. The shit hits the fan, it's good for one call, then dump it. If you find out what's happening, then bring me up to speed. Other than that, keep an ear to the ground and try to find out who's who and what's what. I'll do the same from outside. If you get a call from me, it will probably be to tell you to get out, so have a go bag prepped."

"That's not much to go on."

"No, but it's all I've got. Barton, you're the only one I can get a hold of that I can trust. I need you on the inside."

"You have me, but it's a tall order."

"I know, it's asking a lot. Especially since you'll be in this without a handler."

"Wouldn't be the first time," I said with a shrug.

"You good without an extraction plan?"

I scoffed at this. I had a reputation to maintain, after all. "You know me, ma'am. I make my own."

"All right then," said Hill, looking a little relieved to have a co-conspirator, "I'm dark as of now. Thanks Barton, I owe you one."

I shook my head as I turned to leave. "No you don't, ma'am," I tossed back at her over my shoulder.

* * *

I decided to follow through on my idea to take a night out. It would make it look like my sudden departure from the Triskelion wasn't for clandestine purposes. Down side, of course, was that I was out of touch for a while. I headed toward Georgetown and got some grub, then found some dive with music and a cover. I paid five bucks and got a nice, bright orange hand-stamp of an alibi.

Other than the bartender and the bouncer, I was probably the oldest guy in the place. The bouncer was big and intimidating-looking, but kept his weight on his heels. A couple well-placed throws and he'd be down. The crowd was largely a bunch of college kids. I briefly wondered how many of them had fake IDs.

But hey, not my purview. Besides, I'd be a hypocrite.

The music sucked. Crappy twenty-something angsty crap that my daughter will probably be listening to in six or eight years. Not looking forward to that.

I could only stand the place until 21:00 or so. I figured I should get back and start putting my ear to the ground, anyway.

The Triskelion was an absolute mad house by the time I got back. Everyone was running around like the place was on fire and they were all too busy to spare me a moment to get me up to speed. I tried to find Natasha, but she was nowhere to be found. Eventually, though, I ran into Bobbi.

"The hell's goin' on around here, Bobbi?" I asked her as we quite literally bumped into each other in the cafeteria. "I leave for a few hours' R&R at a crappy concert and chaos descends!"

"Jesus, Clint, where've you been?" Bobbi tore into me.

"I told you, a concert," I said, as defensively as I could muster, casually showing off the orange hand-stamp.

Bobbi shook her head in disbelief, putting a hand on her hip in that way that said she was going to let me have it. "Well, you picked a hell of a time! Director Fury's been shot!"

No acting here. I was genuinely blindsided by the information. I sputtered for a moment, trying to find words. Fury was the best of the best. Hill had said he was in the wind. For someone to have tracked him and shot him... it was huge, it was frightening.

It was one big-ass futzing disaster.

"Where? When? Who?" I finally managed out, still sputtering.

"They don't know yet," Bobbi said, "and that's not all. No one can find Hill."

"My god," I said, turning away from her as if in shock, mostly to hide the lie from her.

"Sitwell's getting a task force together," Bobbi pressed on, "he'll want you on it."

"Right, right, right," I said, "where do I find him?"

"Ops Three. I'm heading there now. C'mon."

The formal name for Ops Three was Operations Control and Communications Center Number Three. You can see how that's a mouthful. Pretty much everyone in SHIELD shortened it for efficiency's sake. It was located on the twenty-second floor of the north tower, toward the inside of the Triskelion. The location was chosen because it was about as close to the dead center of the structure as you could get. Ops One and Ops Two were in the south-east and south-west towers, respectively, in almost the same place.

The words "man cave" came to mind the first time you walked in. The place was dark and lined with monitors and control stations. Ops officers were crowded into every seat in the room and then some, frantically talking on headsets and pressing earpieces to their ears to hear better. Sitwell was at the command position, shouting orders and taking in information as it came. He spotted Bobbi and me as soon as we came in.

"Agent Barton, good of you to join us," he all but snarled.

"Apparently, I can't take an evening," I groused back. It was probably disingenuous, but I really didn't care right then.

"Sir!" a ops tech shouted above the din, turning to Sitwell. "They've located Agent Hill!"

My blood ran cold for an instant. As I said before, Hill was good. For her to have gone dark and been found this quickly did not bode well.

"Where?" Sitwell barked.

"At GW, where they took Director Fury," the ops tech stated, "she's reporting in. Video call."

"Put it on the main screen," commanded Sitwell, donning a headset.

The tech punched a few keys on her station and Hill's face came on, larger than life, on the room's biggest screen in glorious, nauseating shaky-cam. She looked like the deepest circle of hell had taken flight and then done a three-point-landing on her shoulders. For just an instant, her eyes flicked my direction, so I knew she spotted me there in the room.

"Agent Hill," Sitwell said into his headset, "we're relieved to finally hear from you. Do you have a report?"

"Yes," Hill replied, sounding disturbingly numb, "Director Fury is dead."

The whole room went silent in shock. For ten seconds, there wasn't a voice, a keystroke, even a breath.

There's an old adage; no plan survives contact with the enemy. Every day, SHIELD had been in the business of proving that adage wrong. Sure, there were days when everything went sideways. That was how we ended up with a portal the size of Texas floating over New York City and belching hostile aliens, after all. But normally, we could out-plan, out-wit, out-maneuver anyone we came up against. Plans within plans within plans, like layers of one big, stinking onion.

At that moment, I realized that Hill's plan to go dark, find Fury, and help him with whatever was happening had one fatally mistaken assumption; that Fury was alive to need the help. Without him, we were left to find out what had happened to get him killed. Hill must have decided that it was going to be easier to do so from inside SHIELD.

Again, that didn't mean anything good.

Damn, but this past year and a half have been rough. First, Coulson, now Fury. It was hard to believe it could get any worse.

Yeah, yeah. One of these days I'm gonna learn not to say or even _think_ that.

Hill continued with her report amid an uncomfortable silence. To say that the room was stunned was an understatement. A lot of the younger techs, the ones who had only been around since the beginning of the Avengers Initiative, simply stood there with eyes glazed over. Be honest, I can't say I was far off from that myself.

Sitwell took in the report like the pro he was. There was almost no emotion in his face at all. Within just a few minutes, he had dispatched a small army of agents to Cap's apartment. Hill and Cap he had ordered back to the Triskelion immediately.

For my part, I was told to stay on standby. God, but I wanted to go to my bolt hole! But I needed to be reach-able and the bolt hole was designed to be anything but. I spent a restless night in my quarters in the dormitory, barely sleeping and going over everything in my head.

How could it happen? Who could have done this? And, most importantly, why?

* * *

At some point I must have fallen asleep, because I was snapped awake by a vibrating sound from under my pillow. With a jolt, I realized that it was the burner phone that Hill had given me. I tapped out the code to answer that I had programmed in as quickly as I could manage in my half-awake state.

"Yeah?" I said.

"I need you to meet me," Hill's voice came back, "Jefferson Memorial."

I looked over at my clock. It was just after 04:00. I had a vague memory of seeing 03:00 pass. So much for sleep.

"Yeah," I said, rolling out of my bunk. The phone clicked off an instant later.

What? You were expecting code or something? Look, the point of a burner phone is to be untraceable. The longer a call is, the more it's used, the more traceable it is. Talking in riddles and codes and crap just takes more time. If you want to decrease the chances of someone noticing the call, you make it fast. That exchange took five seconds on numbers that no one knew to look for activity on.

After pulling on the closest t-shirt and my shoes, I took the battery out of the burner phone. I couldn't ditch it at the Triskelion, since it would be found.

Seriously. All the garbage was screened before it left. Glad I never had that job.

I decided to go on foot. Checking out a vehicle from the motor pool again would mean a record of my departure. Besides, once you get toward the Mall, there are a bunch of those automated rent-a-bike stands that the tourists like to use. So I wasn't slowed down that much. The burner phone I ditched in a trash can near the bridge over the Tidal Basin that looked pretty full. Since it was a tourist hot-spot, it would probably be emptied before the morning rush to make everything look nice and pretty.

I found Hill on the path next to the Tidal Basin, pacing back and forth.

"A rent-a-bike, Barton? Really?" she asked with skepticism as I came to a stop and got off, leaning it against the nearby stone wall.

"Hey, you take what you can get, when you don't want to leave a paper trail," I replied with a shrug. "I take it this is about you not going dark after all?"

"Yeah, that lasted all of about four hours," she agreed with some annoyance in her voice. It was pretty clear to me that she hadn't slept at all since we had last spoken. She looked drained in more ways than one. "Look, we don't have a lot of time, so I'll get right to it. Fury's alive."

I stared at her stunned for an instant, then looked away, releasing a breath I didn't know I had been holding. The sense of relief I felt was palpable, as if a weight had just been lifted off my chest. In a lot of ways, Fury _is_ SHIELD. At the very least, he's the glue that holds it together. In a way, I didn't realize it until Hill had told me that he was still alive that SHIELD had become a sort of home for me and I had felt a sense of loss for that when I had gotten that awful news in the Triskelion.

Aw, c'mon, don't look at me that way! Yeah, I have an actual place I call home, but SHIELD was home, too, ya know? I mean, it was a psychotic, other-worldly, bat-shit insane home that could get me killed on any given day, but still...

"Jesus," I said with a sigh, "I've had to fake my death before, but I never had to fake it to my own people! What the hell is this?"

"We're still not sure," Hill replied, "but it has something to do with the information that Romanoff brought back from the _Lemurian Star_. Fury said it was locked under his name, but he couldn't access it."

"What? That doesn't make any sense."

"Exactly," said Hill, "it means that someone's hijacked at least some of the security protocols in the SHIELD network. He wants both of us on the inside to try and find out who and why."

"And the data from the _Lemurian Star_?" I asked.

"Fury was able to get it to Rogers," Hill replied, "what he's doing with it, right now, I'm not sure. It's probably best it stays hidden, for now. It's the only thing that Fury had on him when he was shot that the assassin could have wanted."

"Wait, assassin?" I asked. "So he really _was_ shot and it wasn't all for show?"

Hill shook her head. "Rogers chased the trigger man over the rooftops," she went on, "guy in a mask with a metal arm and strength to match Cap. Even caught his shield."

"Wait, that sounds an awful lot like..." I trailed off in disbelief.

You see, sometimes in this business, the only things you have to go on are sketchy rumors and apocryphal stories. Fish tales more often than not have some kind of a seed of truth to them. You just gotta dig around in the dirt enough to find it. In the end it's almost never as fantastic as the fish tale would have you believe.

The rumor of the Winter Solider, however, was something else entirely. The sketchiness of that fish tale was enough to make even me believe that it was complete bull shit. It was one of those stories that makes you think it was written by some back room hack, trying to get his first noir mystery paperback published.

Heh. Says the guy writing like a noir mystery paperback.

"But he's just a myth," I continued, looking at Hill as if she had completely lost her marbles.

"That's what I thought, too, but Fury tells me otherwise," said Hill, "he hasn't been able to read me in all the way, yet. But if he believes the Winter Soldier is real..."

"You gotta be kidding me," I moaned, scrubbing a hand over my tired eyes.

"I wish," Hill said, her voice barely a whisper, "I keep wondering when the world will decide it's crazy enough, but every time I turn around..." She shook her head.

"Ah, hell," I said, "I got brainwashed by a Norse god and then fought along side his brother. I suppose it's not that big a leap to a 90-year old super soldier that doesn't age manipulating the history of global conflict. Why not? I'm in. So, what's our play?"

"Everything leads back to the _Lemurian Star_ ," she said, "Fury was attacked as soon as he told Pierce about his reservations about that data. I've got the clearance to work the software and records side of this. I need you on the hostages and crew from the op, searching for hard clues."

"What kind of reservations did Fury have about that data?"

"Stuff you haven't been read in on."

"Then maybe you'd better read me in," I said.

"Fury didn't authorize me to-"

"I don't give a damn!" I said, finally breaking, throwing my arms wide.

"Barton..." Hill sighed, turning away from me with a roll of her eyes.

"I'm serious!" I pressed. "I need a direction, here, Hill! You're asking me to investigate the people I work with. I need more than looking at who's acting weird. Everyone at SHIELD is acting weird right now! I gotta narrow it down, somehow!" I paused, hoping that Hill would relent. She continued to shake her head, not meeting my eyes, though her body language clearly said she was wavering. I pressed. "Besides, officially, Fury's dead. As his number 2, that puts you in charge in the interim, until a new Director is appointed by the Council. So technically, it's your call, anyway."

"That's splitting the hair pretty thin, Barton."

"Maybe so," I admitted, "but we're already splitting that hair, or we wouldn't be out here visiting Tom at 05:00." I chucked my thumb over my shoulder to indicate the Jefferson Memorial.

Hill's shoulders dropped and she looked to the sky. I'm pretty sure I heard her mutter something about how Fury was going to kill her. Eventually, she turned back around to me, her decision made.

"Project Insight," she said, "you'll need my access codes to look it up in the system. Lamba, alpha, nine two zero. I assume you've got a clean computer?"

I nodded. "No one will see me on it."

"All right. You have four hours, then I'm changing my access codes. Project Insight and _only_ Project Insight. I want your word."

I nodded. "You got it," I said, turning back to my rented bike.

"Barton," Hill said, halting me, "no kidding. There are things in there... they'll damage you if you know them."

I nodded again, sobering even more than I already had, if that were possible. Without anything further, I rode away, back toward the Triskelion.

As I left, I swore I heard Hill muttering something about a vacation in Tahiti. Gotta admit, someplace tropical and off the grid sounded really magical right about then.

* * *

Hill was true to her word when she said she would give me four hours before I got locked out again. But I made good use of the time, after I got back to the Triskelion and into my bolt hole. It wasn't long before I had copies of the Project Insight files saved safely to a portable hard drive that I had on hand.

Was I tempted to look at other stuff? Bet your ass, I was. Did I? Ended up keeping true to my word. Sucker for puppy dog eyes, I guess. There had been something very pleading in Hill's eyes when she had told me to keep to Project Insight.

Some times, there are just things you don't want to know about. Trust me on this one.

As it stood, it turned out that I didn't really want to know about Project Insight, as it was. A sniper I may be, but I couldn't have an eye on the whole world all at once. Three advanced helicarriers, primed to take out anyone we don't like from near-orbit with the push of a button? Not only would I be out of a job, the very idea gave me the futzing creeps. Fury had reservations about how it would be used? Hell, I had reservations about its existence.

I left my bolt hole around 09:00 and checked in, then grabbed some food. And some coffee. God, did I need coffee. Would have drunk it by the pot, if I could have, at that point.

I ended up bringing an insulted mug of sweet, sweet caffeinated goodness with me to the status meeting that Sitwell was holding at 10:30. I wasn't the only one. Apparently, a lot of people had lost sleep in the wake of the news of Fury's demise the previous night. Not that I blamed them. But it also made me wonder who else was skulking around in the shadows the way I was.

There weren't a lot of people in the room. Apparently, Sitwell was keeping the core of his task force small. Bobbi was there and I instinctively claimed the seat next to her. She looked... disturbed, to say the least; dark bags under her eyes and a slump in her shoulders.

Rumlow, the head of STRIKE, was there as well. I had been with STRIKE for a while and he and I had not really gotten along very well, so it hadn't lasted. Around that time Coulson rescued me from it, recognizing that I work pretty damned good on my own or with a single partner. Oddly enough, Rumlow looked well-rested, as if this was just another day. Part of why I didn't like him; the man never seemed to have any feelings except when he was fighting. It just wasn't right.

Doctor Deidre Wentworth was also in the room. She, too, looked weirdly composed, with her black hair pulled back into a tight bun and the aquiline features of her face looking well-rested. I didn't know her very well, since she spent most of her time in labs at various SHIELD sites, doing bio-tech work. Coulson had briefly consulted with her when we first came across Mjolnir in New Mexico. No one could lift the damn thing and Coulson had called on Wentworth to make sure there wasn't a dangerous bio-component to it.

Turned out it was just magic. Who knew?

I hate magic.

Sitwell swept into the room, closing and locking the door behind him. He tossed files out to each of us, then took the seat at the head of the table. "All right," he said, "this meeting is going to be difficult. But I need you all to put aside any personal feelings you may have. We need to treat this like any other investigation that SHIELD might undertake. By now, you've all heard that Director Fury was shot and killed last night. Our job now is to piece together why and by whom. Now, based on some preliminary findings from the scene, we have something of a working theory. Agent Rumlow?"

"STRIKE was first on the scene, last night after the incident," Rumlow said, standing up, "my men secured the sight and did a preliminary search of the premises."

"STRIKE conducted the preliminary search?" Bobbi spoke up. "That's a little unorthodox."

"My team asked for their assistance," Wentworth stated, crossing her arms over her chest, "as soon as he got the news of the shooting, I was dispatched to head up a forensics team, since my clearance allows me access to most of the classified information that Fury might have had with him or that Captain Rogers might have had in his apartment. Given the sensitive nature of the incident, and the probability that it would be a media nightmare for SHIELD, I asked STRIKE to search while my team was en route in order to get information as quickly as possible."

"From what we were able to piece together, Director Fury had forced entry into Captain Rogers apartment," Rumlow went on, "this happened sometime after the chase that occurred yesterday afternoon. From the amount of blood present on the chair he had been waiting in, and based on the reports of his injuries from the chase, we think he had been there waiting for a while before Rogers showed up."

"Do we know why he went to Cap, yet?" I asked.

"That's... the difficult part," Sitwell said, "we think that he was trying to hand off information to Captain Rogers."

"So?" Bobbi said with a shrug, "Cap's SHIELD. What's wrong with that?"

"It's the nature of what he was trying to hand off," Sitwell answered, "following his meeting with Pierce, Director Fury was in possession of a flash drive containing the data that Agent Romanoff retrieved from the _Lemurian Star_ , data on a highly-classified project called Insight. Of all of you, Doctor Wentworth is the only one at this table with clearance to be read in on it. Captain Rogers... does not have that clearance."

"Further, the encryption on the data was set to unlock for Director Fury himself," Wentworth put in, "so the idea that it would have been stored on the _Lemurian Star_ in the first place, is... dubious."

"Then, how'd it get there for Romanoff to bring back?" Bobbi asked.

"We believe that Agent Romanoff and Captain Rogers brought the data to the _Lemurian Star_ themselves," Rumlow stated, as if the very idea was obvious.

I suddenly had a very bad idea of where the conversation was going. I sat up a little straighter in my seat, feeling very on edge. I couldn't help but glance over at the door for just a half a second, unnerved that it had locked us in. I hate to admit it, but I was starting to freak out a little, so much so that I actually missed a little bit of the conversation. It sounded like Bobbi was trying to poke holes in their so-called theory when I snapped back in.

"Wait, hold on," I jumped back in, shaking my head in disbelief, "just what are you saying, here?"

The room went quiet as they all looked at me.

"What?" I pressed. "Someone's gotta ask. Let's stop tiptoeing. What are we saying is going on around here?"

"What we are saying, Agent Barton," Sitwell finally said, leveling a frankly creepy-ass gaze at me, "is that we believe that Director Fury sent Agent Romanoff to the _Lemurian Star_ to sell classified SHIELD intel to Batroc. When the deal went south, he ordered Captain Rogers to assist his cover up. But Batroc's men came to DC to take the data or take their revenge."

Well, that bombshell sure as hell made my job more complex. I just plain couldn't help it. I gaped at Sitwell.

"You can't be serious," I said, "I know Natasha, I vouched for her when she joined SHIELD. She wouldn't do something like that!"

"Clint," Bobbi put in, looking quite uncomfortable herself, "maybe we should-"

"No, no, no, c'mon!" I pressed. "We're talking about Director Fury and Captain freaking America! It's absurd!"

"None the less, Agent Barton," Sitwell said, sounding colder than I had ever heard him, and that's saying something. "It is the scenario that fits all the facts. Pierce is speaking to Captain Rogers as we speak and is ordering him to turn over the data. Agent Romanoff... is missing. No one has seen her since she gave her statement last night."

My blood went positively frigid at that. Nat doesn't trust a lot of people, to be sure. And she has reason not to. I figured that she had gleaned a lot of what they were thinking from their line of questioning, but going to ground... it didn't look good. And the fact that she did so without coming to me first?

Nope. Didn't look good at all.

"Agent Barton, I know that you have reservations," said Sitwell, "but those must be set aside for now. We need to track down Agent Romanoff and you know her best. So, your assignment is-"

Just then, Sitwell's phone rang and he fished it from his pocket, looking at the caller ID on the screen. He immediately answered it.

"Yes sir?" He said, then paused to listen. "Yes, sir. Understood. Yes, sir." He then turned the phone off again without so much as a pause. "That was Councilman Pierce," he told us, "unfortunately, our attempt to handle this delicately has not worked out. Captain Rogers has refused to assist in the investigation. Agent Rumlow, you are go."

"Yes, sir," Rumlow said, springing to his feet and making for the door. He disappeared behind it before I had a chance to ask any questions about what was happening.

I turned inquisitive eyes to Sitwell.

"Agent Rumlow will be bringing Captain Rogers in for questioning," he said.

Next to me, Bobbi gave a hint of a chuckle, smirking slightly. "Hope he's bringing the rest of STRIKE," she said.

"As a matter of fact, he is," Sitwell confirmed.

"And if he overpowers them and runs?" I asked. All eyes uncomfortably turned back to me again. "Like I said," I elaborated, "this is Captain America, we're talking about, here."

"A tracker has been planted on him," Wentworth put in, "if he runs, we will be able to find him. We'll call in the Hulk-Busters if we have to, but he _will_ be brought in."

"A tracker? How'd you manage that? Where is it on him?"

"It's on the one thing that Captain America is never without," Wentworth said, almost crowing, "his shield. If he does run, he will undoubtedly take it with him."

Well, that was unsettling. I made a mental note to check my bow and quiver thoroughly before heading out on my next op.

"In the meantime," Sitwell went on, "we need to find Agent Romanoff. Barton, Morse, you will be on that. Wentworth and I will continue to look into the Project Insight angle."

The rest of that meeting isn't really important. More plans within plans that never got used. For my part, I processed what I knew.

The first thing that I decided was that this business about Nat and Cap selling out SHIELD intel was complete bull shit. Same with Fury. Just couldn't buy it. Everything that Sitwell had just presented had made it seem like I was crazy for it, but my gut was telling me otherwise. That, and Hill's having let me in on what Project Insight was all about. Everything came back to the biggest weapon that SHIELD was ever going to have at its disposal and how it connected to this data that Nat brought back from the _Lemurian Star_ and that Cap was supposedly refusing to hand over.

And then, for some reason, it suddenly occurred to me that Sitwell and Rumlow had been on the _Lemurian Star_ , too. Sitwell had even been there before all hell broke loose. And now, here he was, heading up the investigation, putting him in the perfect position to cover up anything he wanted to.

Pretty sure that was the moment I started hating the guy with every fiber of my being.

The next thing that occurred to me was the old tactic of planting a lie inside the truth. I had done it to Sitwell just the day that Nat had gotten back. Who's to say that Sitwell wasn't doing exactly the same? The guy was well aware of the tactic, after all. Did that mean that Sitwell was the one selling SHIELD intel to Batroc? But then, why would Batroc send the Winter Solider to kill Fury?

Was it even the Winter Solider?

At any rate, I needed to talk to Hill about it, and fast. And somehow, I needed to get word to Cap that he had a tracker planted on his shield.

It was about seven minutes after Rumlow had left to collect Cap that alarms started sounding. Sitwell got another phone call just about the same time. He listened for a moment, then looked back to the rest of us.

"Well, it seems Captain Rogers has elected to run," he stated, darkly, "Barton, Morse, I want you out there with the rest of the Specialists. Don't let him leave and if he gets out of the Triskelion anyway, go after him."

"Yes, sir," Bobbi said as she and I stood. We made for the door at once and she was first through.

"And Barton?" Sitwell said just as I was about to exit. I looked back at him in silence. "Best decide quickly where your loyalties lie, hmm?"

Grinding my teeth, I nodded to him and left, allowing the door to slam behind me.

As far as I was concerned, there was nothing to decide.

* * *

I was walking on the lobby mezzanine when Cap came crashing through the glass roof, landing hard on his shield. From how slow he got up, it looked like the fall hurt even him, so it must have been from quite a few floors up. I made a show of joining in the general bedlam the lobby became and got myself caught up in the pushing crowds just enough to justify not being able to get to Cap right then and there. I saw him sprint out the main door and then I heard the tell-tale sound of a motorcycle making its way over the bridge.

Wait, hold on, right? Didn't I want to get word to Cap? Why not right then and there? Thing is, the longer he was in the Triskelion, the harder it was going to be for him to get away. If I was going to get to him, I needed to do it on the streets of DC. This was going to be hard.

And, for me to stay inside... yeah, I pretty much resigned myself right then and there to a world of pain in my near future.

Hearing a series of explosions from the bridge, I made my way to the armory and grabbed my gear. I couldn't help but eye my bow and quiver with suspicion. If they could plant a tracker on Cap's shield, lord only knew what they could put in my quiver. I decided that I had to act as if they were listening in on me. I knew Sitwell was keeping an eye on me, watching me for any sign that I was going to follow my fellow Avengers and join Cap and Nat on their crusade. Had to make it look good.

I ran into Bobbi on my way to get a motorcycle of my own.

"Clint, Cap's on the move!" she said. "Sitwell wants us in the air. Quinjet's warming up."

"Right," I said, nodding and following.

When we got to the Quinjet, I let Bobbi take the controls, taking a place near the hatch and making ready to use the vantage point I was about to have. It was, after all, my specialty, so no one thought any different of it. A few other agents piled on to the Quinjet after us.

"This is Mockingbird," Bobbi said into the comms, "I have Hawkeye and we've got the signal from the transmitter. Preparing to take off in pursuit."

"Roger, Quinjet six," came the always collected voice of mission control, "suggest you employ stealth tactics."

"Understood," Bobbi replied as the jet took off and hurtled into the sky. A moment later, there was a soft hum and I knew the jet's reflective plating had been activated.

I didn't want to believe it, but Bobbi was being a good little soldier. That was the moment I had a first glimpse of a bigger struggle; agent against agent, brother against brother. In this fight, we were going to know everyone we were sent to deceive, bring in, or cross off. I had been placed in a similar situation, years ago before I joined SHIELD. I had hoped never to be in one like it again.

But that's a whole other story involving a lot of cuts, bruises, and broken bones. I won't get into it, here.

The Quinjet took off at a tear over DC, following the tracker on Cap's shield. We were over downtown Washington in less than a minute.

"He's on L at 17th," Bobbi called back to me, "heading toward Vermont."

"Drop me on a building at Vermont," I said, readying a line, "let's see if we can cut him off."

Bobbi slowed the Quinjet enough to let me descend to a rooftop, then I heard the Quinjet move off, positioning itself over the intersection of L and Vermont. I needed to get in control of the situation, get some idea of which way Cap was going to go. Spotting some trees on boulevards, I readied three explosive-tip arrows. From my vantage point on the roof, I quickly lined up a shot at a tree on L, after Vermont, then one on Vermont. As soon as Cap's cycle was in the intersection, I felled another tree behind him on L, leaving only the northbound path on Vermont open. As I figured, Cap rounded the corner before I could get another shot off.

I took off at a run along the rooftop, northward up Vermont. With a quick shot of a grapple arrow, I jumped the gap between buildings across an alley, barely breaking stride as I rolled back to my feet and sprinted toward the narrow point of rooftop at the place where Vermont entered Thomas Circle. Another grapple arrow and I was able to rappel down a set of balconies and light on the sidewalk just as Cap's cycle shot into the circle, rounding the curve.

I loosed a couple of arrows, an old trick I learned back in the day, and cut off his path only a few feet in front of him as I cut straight across the grass of the circle. Cap's cycle veered toward me as he tried to avoid the sudden obstacle. As he tried to get control of the cycle, I vaulted off the fence, swung on a nearby tree branch and landed in front of him. Cap dug the tires of the cycle into the grass as he skidded to a halt. I readied an arrow and drew a bead.

"Clint, don't do this," he said, his eyes looking more puppy-dog than I had ever seen. And the man is the king of puppy-dog eyes, believe me!

I shook my head, trying to look as hard as I could. It was quite possibly the most difficult deception I had ever tried to pull and it tore at me in ways you can't understand. "Can't do that, Steve," I said, "too many questions need answers. I gotta bring you in." Our eyes locked as we stared each other down. This was the moment that I could communicate with him. I flicked my eyes down to the pile of dirt that had piled itself before his front tire, then looked back. He didn't seem to notice, so I did it again... and again.

C'mon, old man! Figure it out! We didn't have much more time. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. Bobbi had caught up in the Quinjet. It was just above us. Risking just a little raised eyebrow, I looked to the dirt one more time.

Finally, he got it. Cap revved the engine, throwing the cycle into reverse and kicking dirt into the air between us. I acted as if some of it had been thrown into my eyes and shot my arrow wild. By the time I got my eyes open again, Cap was rushing back toward me on the cycle. This was it, my one chance.

Bracing myself, I reached an arm out to try and make it look like I was trying to knock him off the cycle. Let me tell you, that was a punch that hurt. I'd hit a lot of people with hard heads before, but, man-oh-man, Steve is like a brick wall.

I made a show of fumbling around to get purchase and let him drag me along for a few yards, before I found enough of my feet to swing around and position an arm in a headlock around his neck, but only squeezed enough to hold on. Still, Cap weaved the bike as he struggled a little.

"Listen!" I hissed in his ear. "They're tracking you! On your shield! Make it look good!"

"What are you-"

I squeezed just enough to stop the question before it could be picked up by anyone listening.

"I'm on the inside of this!" I told him. "And I gotta stay there. You gotta hit me, knock me out! So you can get away! Find Nat, find the data, and run!"

Without so much as hesitating, Cap threw an elbow back into my ribcage. I felt something crack. It wasn't the first cracked rib I had had and it certainly wouldn't be the last. But it would lend some credence to Cap over-powering me. I let go of Cap's neck and swung down, pulling him and the cycle down with me. We skidded to a halt in the middle of 14th. It turned into a brawl and I fumbled with my quiver until I found the arrow I was after.

"On your right!" I breathed as I brought the arrow around tip-first, like a knife. Cap blocked it with his shield, setting off the specialized tip. The arrow hit with a vibrating clang and a wave of pressure went out from the shield. Cap looked at me for a moment in puzzlement. "EMP tip. The tracker is out, but we're being watched! Hit me!"

"Clint, I-"

"Hit! Me!"

Cap and I wrestled a little more. It was obvious that he was wrestling with his conscience at the same time.

"Thanks," he finally said, then pulled back a fist.

The last thing I remember is seeing it sail toward me and feeling the impact. It was like having a building land on my forehead.

Which, in retrospect, has also happened, actually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FROM THE EDITOR...
> 
> Thanks for reading part one. The ending for this chapter was one of the big plot bunnies that originally inspired this fic. I recently read about a scene that had originally been written into Captain America: The Winter Solider to include Hawkeye and reveal right away which side of things he was on. In it, Cap was going to be harried by Clint and they were going to end up in a fight. During the fight, Clint was going to whisper to Cap that there was a cloaked Quinjet above them watching and that he had a tracking device planted on him. Clint would then tell Cap to knock him out to make it look good. The scene was scrapped because Jeremy Renner had other commitments, making all us Hawkeye fans terribly sad.
> 
> It got me thinking. A, what was Hawkeye doing that day? B, why did he need to stay undercover? C, how did he make it through the fighting?
> 
> I'm also somewhat inspired by the recent Hawkeye comics, many of which have an element of narration from Clint. Each issue tends to begin with some form of "this looks bad." It makes me giggle every time and I'm not sure why.
> 
> Given the history for Clint and Bobbi in the comics, I couldn't resist having them have been in a relationship previously and still be really good friends. They seriously need to have some shared screen time in the MCU, even though both of them are in committed relationships with other people. I will accept no other headcanon.
> 
> Finally, Deidre Wentworth is based on a character from the comics. She'll be playing more of a role later.
> 
> Thanks for reading. See you in chapter two!


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawkeye helps Hill try to ferret out the rotten element within SHIELD only to find that the stakes are much higher than they ever could have imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> INTERLUDE ONE
> 
> Yeah, this looks bad.
> 
> That's the Triskelion across the river, there. Or at least it was. Now's it's a pile of scrap, on fire.
> 
> So, now I've got no where in DC to go and god knows how many Hydra agents after me, many of whom know me and my tactics. This is what I get for helping out friends, I guess.
> 
> Plus side, we did what we set out to do. Minus side? SHEILD is gone and the good agents are all on the run. Hydra is back, though it turns out they never actually went away...
> 
> Okay, so there's a lot more minus than plus.
> 
> Anyhow, when we left off, Cap had just punched my lights out, at my request, so I could maintain cover and stay on the inside of this thing. So why don't I forge ahead with the story while we continue on. I can't stay in one place very long, right now, ya see...

As reality returned, it was with the realization that an entire Javanese gamelan was playing rounds in my head. My ears were ringing, any light that made it past my eyelids was like a knife, and everything around me spun in circles like a tilt-o-whirl. As awareness slowly returned, I soon realized that there was a pretty sharp pain in my right ribcage, as well.

"Ow," I moaned out, shifting just slightly to find that I was strapped into a harness in a seat. Probably the Quinjet.

A gloved hand landed on my shoulder. "Stay still, sir," said a voice next to me, "ma'am, he's waking up."

"Good, make sure he doesn't hork," Bobbi's voice came back to me as I finally adjusted to having my eyes open again, "I'm not cleaning it up if he does. Way to blow it, Clint!"

"Aw, Birdie, good to know you still care," I murmured, "you try going hand-to-hand with a super soldier, see how you feel afterward." I let my head collapse back against the hull of the Quinjet, hoping to stave off the rising nausea I felt coming on.

"Just sit tight, killer," Bobbi replied, "we're just coming in for a landing and medical is on its way."

Five minutes later, a med tech was shining an annoying pen light in my eyes to check pupil dilation. Thankfully, the sensitivity to light had subsided somewhat, so it _wasn't_ like someone was gouging out my eyeballs.

"No concussion," the med tech finally declared, "you're lucky."

"Yeah, doc, just how I feel," I groused, "lucky."

Sitwell came storming on to the jet just then, looking none-too-happy. He gave a glare to Bobbi, standing nearby, looked me over quickly, then turned to the med tech.

"Status on Agent Barton?" he asked.

"Well," said the med tech, "pretty good bruise on that pretty face and one cracked rib on the right side. Lucky it wasn't a break."

"Again, doc, not feeling real lucky, here," I put in.

"Is he fit for duty?" Sitwell asked.

The med tech was non-committal. "I don't think any of this is life-threatening or anything, but I'm a little concerned about the rib. I'd like to put him on some muscle relaxants for a day or so, to make sure it doesn't get strained out of place and turn into a break."

"No, no, no," I said with a shake of my head, levering myself up out of the seat, "stuff messes with my aim. I got work to do."

Sitwell gave me an appraising look once again, then looked askance over at the med tech.

The med tech sighed, heavily, a clear signal that he wasn't happy with the decision, but had resigned himself to it. "I suppose he can do with some anti-inflammatories," he admitted, then reached for his bag and dug out a bottle that he put in my hand.

"Good," said Sitwell, "in that case, do you two wanna tell me what the hell happened out there?" Sitwell's glare had shifted to include Bobbi again. "We send you out to bring Rogers in and not only does he get away from two of our best specialists, the tracker on him goes dark, as well."

"That's on me, sir," I put in, trying to spare Bobbi the blame. Bobbi and I hadn't been an item for years, but I still had a bit of a chivalrous streak in me toward her, I guess. "I thought I was grabbing my stun-tip. Turned out it was the EMP."

Sitwell looked at me with no small amount of skepticism on his face. "You, Barton?" he asked. "You, of all people, grabbed the wrong ammunition?"

Whoops.

Funny thing about having a legendary reputation. People have a hard time believing that you made a mistake when it comes to the field that granted you that legend. And here I was asking my own handler to think I grabbed a different arrow than I intended.

Fortunately, I had a cover.

"C'mon, sir!" I said. "I was in a fist-fight with the world's greatest super soldier and I already had a busted rib! Whadaya want from me?"

I could see Sitwell's jaw jump as he ground his teeth. He gave a deep, disapproving sigh and there was a long uncomfortable pause. "All right," he finally said, though it was obvious he still wasn't happy with me, "what's done is done. We have people on his trail, so we'll leave Rogers to them. In the meantime, we need to find Romanoff."

* * *

Sitwell kept me and Bobbi in a meeting with Rumlow for about an hour after that. We coordinated logistics and divvied up how we were going to go about finding Natasha and Cap. After that, Sitwell released us all to the wild. Being the most familiar with Nat's habits, I made like I was going to check a number of her haunts and safe houses across the city. It freed me up to check in with Hill.

Taking my gear to my bolt hole, for a bit, I gave it the once-over. Luckily there didn't seem to be anything in them as far as tracking or listening devices, which certainly simplified matters. I dropped a line to Hill from my clean laptop. Used Skype, if you believe it, to send an anonymous text to her phone. The internet is fantastic, when you're a spy!

While I waited for a response, I downed a Cliff bar and went over the info on Project Insight again, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Well, I mean, more out of the ordinary than SHIELD sniping people from the sky before they actually commit a crime. The more I thought about it, the creepier I found the whole thing. I mean, who would make these decisions? Would we ever even know? These were the questions that creeped, more than any of it. And these were the questions that I was sifting through the information trying to answer when I noticed the problem.

See, when it comes right down to it, Project Insight was basically one big, glorified sniper. There are a few things that any sniper needs, regardless of whether they're a person or a machine; they need a target, they need a line of sight, and they need an order. I found programming for the figuring out when a target is in line of sight. I found programming that would give the order to shoot.

But the targets? There didn't seem to be anything that would allow someone to tell the machine who to target. No where to input that information at all, no way to point the thing where we wanted it to point. So not only did we not know who would be making these decisions, we also didn't know how the targets would be... well, targeted, basically.

You having nightmares yet? Because I _still_ do.

Still, that part of things was Hill's purview. I needed to figure out who was involved in this whole thing and what they were after. I turned instead to who had access to the Project Insight files and who had access to the helicarriers themselves. The Project Insight files themselves had some information on that.

Sitwell had access to it. That didn't surprise me. Wentworth, too. Her role was that of "genetic analyst." That was beyond hinky. Why would a high-tech sniper program need someone to analyze genetics? Rumlow was on the list, listed as a security consultant with limited access. I suppose that wasn't too out of the ordinary, but it seemed like kind of a waste of the head of STRIKE.

John Garrett... field operative, limited access consultant. I think I had met the man once or twice, but I didn't really know him. Good taste in music, if I remember right. Didn't really have any idea what he had to offer to the program.

About a half hour later, the laptop chirped back at me that Hill had responded. I had suggested Arlington for this meetup and she agreed.

Since I was supposed to be out looking for Nat, there wasn't any reason to pretend that I wasn't leaving. I took a cycle from the motor pool again. I beat Hill to the cemetery by a good fifteen minutes or so which left me time to ponder the names on the wall of the mausoleum complex.

I had chosen the section in the south-west corner of the complex. It had the biggest trees, cutting off any view of us from above. And the maze-like nature of the complex made for few lines of sight that we wouldn't be aware of before someone came into them.

I hadn't thought about the names on the wall. With nothing to do but stand on the sidewalk and wait for Hill, the names on the wall grabbed and demanded my attention. I hadn't anticipated that. I'm not sure if it was because shit was hitting the fan or some kind of mid-life crisis or what. But for some reason, I was oddly introspective about them.

Herbert Birdsall, First Lieutenant, Army. In his spot all alone with a nice, regimented cross inside a circle marking him as Christian, nothing else to distinguish him in death. I wondered what he had done to earn his rank and what sort of man he was.

Michael O Tomasko, Seargent, Army. He was sharing his spot with his wife Helen Elizabeth. She had outlived him by 23 years. I was always afraid of doing the same thing to Laura and it made me wonder which of them was the luckier of the two.

William Henry Ailor Jr, Lieutenant Commander, Navy. Alone in his spot, but proudly displaying the cross specific to the United Methodist Church. Obviously, that distinction was important to him for some reason. Was he a spiritual guy? And how did he reconcile that with being in the military?

I sensed Hill's approach without ever turning to look at her. She must have noticed my introspection because she didn't say a word as she came up to stand next to me, also looking at the names on the wall. There was a long silence between us, the only sound the rustle of the leaves in the tree just above us.

"You get the feeling we're going to be putting more names on tombstones pretty soon?" I asked her, finally, once the silence had become unbearable. It was perhaps more dramatic than I'm used to being.

"Yeah," Hill answered, quietly.

"I'm gettin' kinda tired of puttin' men in the ground," I admitted, feeling every bit as tired as I probably sounded.

"Yeah," she agreed, impossibly even more quiet than before. After another long moment of quiet, she collected herself and tore her eyes away from the wall. "What do you have?"

"A busted rib and prescription ibuprofen," I answered, gingerly putting a hand to the sore spot on my side, "hope it was worth it. Please tell me Cap's in the wind."

"He disappeared into the metro tunnels after your dust-up," she answered, "and since that tracker is dark, no one can find him. Nice work with the EMP, by the way. Knocked out every cell phone in Thomas Circle and a few computers in cars, besides. There was a pretty good traffic snarl after that."

"Eh, people these days need to unplug," I said, waving it off, "I've been cross-referencing the group that went on the op to the _Lemurian Sta_ r with the list of people working on Sitwell's taskforce and with clearances for Project Insight. There's a lot of cross over between the three. Other than that I don't have a lot concrete to go on."

"I'll take hunches, at this point," Hill said.

"I keep coming around to Sitwell," I said, "all of this is marching right through his office. He was on the _Lemurian Star_ , he's heading up the investigation into Fury's death, and he has full access to Project Insight. He's in the perfect position to know about whatever this is and cover it up. But beyond that, how does Insight pick its targets?"

The sudden change of topic seemed to jar Hill. She blinked at me several times. I'm not used to seeing her look clueless. I kinda wish I had a camera to snap a photo. No one was going to believe me.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"There is exactly one thing that will make me miss my target every time," I told her, "and that's not being given one in the first place. Near as I can tell, Insight doesn't have anything to input a target; no targeting system, no manual aiming... nothing."

"So how does it pick a target?" she asked with realization dawning. "Oh my god."

"You ask me, we got bigger problems than who's pulling the strings on this and that's what strings they're pulling," I pressed.

Hill nodded grimly. "You're right," she agreed, "who ever's behind this, their identity is buttoned up tight from the inside of SHIELD. We'll need to leave that to Rogers and Romanoff now that they're outside. We need to make a contingency plan, a failsafe for Project Insight if it falls into the wrong hands."

"Seems simple enough to me," I said with a shrug, "three helicarriers, three targets. Let's give 'em something to shoot at."

"Program Insight to target itself," she agreed with a nod, "we're gonna need some help with that. And we'll need to fly under the Radar to get some equipment."

"I can move around the Triskelion without being seen," I said, "just give me a list."

"All right," Hill said, "give me three hours, then meet me in the cafeteria. Meanwhile, whatever Sitwell has you doing, act like you're on that."

"He has me checking Nat's haunts," I said, "can't hurt to be seen doing that. Gotta be honest, he's been giving me the hairy eyeball. I'm not sure he completely trusts that I'm buying into the party line."

Hill nodded grimly. "Okay," she said around a heavy sigh, "look, if you get made, or even if you have reasonable cause to _think_ you've been made, get out. I'd rather have you as an asset on the outside than risk you being a prisoner because you tried to stay inside."

"Yes, ma'am," I acknowledged.

Hill turned back to all the names on the wall and pondered them for another moment. To be honest, it scared the crap outta me the fear I saw in her eyes right then. She was pondering what we were about to do, just like I was. It definitely went without being spoken; by the end of this, people were going to die. It was just the numbers that would be different if we succeeded or failed. Either Project Insight would be able to kill god-knows-how-many, or we would be killing the small crews aboard the three helicarriers, some might even have been loyal SHIELD agents. There's no more horrifying choice to have to make than the choice between cold, hard numbers.

"And Barton," she added, still looking at all the names, "let's try and keep as many bodies out of the ground as we can."

"Yes, ma'am," I agreed in kind.

Nothing more needed to be said, but there was a lot to do. Without exchanging words, we briefly looked at each other, then turned and left the mausoleum complex in opposite directions.

* * *

I spent three hours popping in on some of Natasha's regular safe spots. As I figured would happen, I didn't see her at any of them. What I _did_ see was some of Rumlow's lackies also checking some of the same haunts. STRIKE was good at what they did, but they were not subtle. It became apparent pretty quick that they knew about some of Natasha's safe houses and didn't know about others. After the third one, I decided not to check in on some of her more private spots on the off chance that I was being tailed by someone a little more skilled than Rumlow's crew.

I had that feeling, that odd little tingle in the back of my skull, that made me feel like I was being watched. I don't know if it was because I was running on a sleep deficit at that point or if it was just plain paranoia, but I just couldn't shake it. But I also knew better than to ignore it. That little tingle had saved my ass on more than one occasion. It's not any sort of super power. I'm not an enhanced or anything. Just another one of the side-effects of this job.

Seriously, we should all be in therapy. A disturbingly high number of us actually are, in fact.

I ran into Hill again in the cafeteria at the arranged time. It took me by surprise to see her walking toward the garbage bins with a tray full of packaging, her food having been finished already. Her eyes snapped toward me for a moment as I made for the lunch line to get a sandwich and some coffee. Then, she picked another face out of the crowd and got their attention, seeming to want to talk about something urgent with them.

My senses immediately went on alert. Had she picked up a tail?

After picking up my food, I wandered in the direction of my normal table on the mezzanine. Hill finished her conversation with the other person just as I passed. She turned as if in a hurry to get back to urgent business and her tray spun around right into mine, sending her trash and my food tumbling to the floor.

Ah. Now I got it.

"Oh, geeze, Barton!" Hill exclaimed.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry," I said around a sigh, playing along. We stumbled over each other as a number of people looked on at the disturbance. We both mumbled excuses; in a hurry, not getting enough sleep the past few days. All the while, we shuffled around with paper towels and sorted through the mess to clean up my spilled cup of coffee and retrieve everything else from the floor. When we were done, the pile of garbage on her tray had been augmented with a few more wet paper towels and I had a couple on my tray that were sopping up a puddle so as not to reach my sandwich.

See, most people when they make a hand-off that they don't want others to notice, will do so in a way they think will draw no attention. Our problem was that everyone in the cafeteria was trained to spot such behavior. So trying to keep a low profile was like sending up a flare. So instead, Hill had gone out of her way to draw attention to herself and then to me by extension. The rest of the room wouldn't want to be disrespectful and stare at two high-ranking SHIELD agents bumbling into a very mundane cafeteria accident. It would be embarrassing for either of us to be seen unaware of our surroundings enough to smack into each other. The eyes that turned toward us quickly flicked away when they saw the situation.

And in that pile of soaked-through napkins that was now on my tray, I knew would be hidden the thing she needed to hand off to me.

We exchanged a few further apologies, then went on our respective ways. She finished discarding her trash and I returned to the line to get a fresh cup of coffee, then continued up to my normal table. On the way, I passed a discarded newspaper on another table and grabbed it. It gave me a reason to stall and look like I was not in a hurry to get out of there and check out whatever info Hill had slipped me on the flash drive I found under the napkins.

I gave it about a half an hour before I cleaned up, discarded the garbage from my meal, and headed out of the cafeteria with the flash drive palmed. I still had that damned tingle in my brain and I just plain couldn't shake it. I didn't spot a tail, but that didn't always mean anything.

I went to my bolt hole the long way around, getting into the vents by way of a bathroom stall where I knew I had privacy. It took me about twice as long as normal to get there, since I went up a few floors and back down again. I finally lost the tingle about a floor away from my hideout.

God, but I was tired. And the trip through the vents had pulled on my busted rib like a sonovabitch. By the time I finally got there, I had to take a breather. The bolt hole had a bunch of old pillows and seat cushions that made a relatively comfortable nest and I flopped onto the pile of them for a few minutes, just breathing. A throb began to creep back into my head and I realized it had been several hours since I had had any ibuprofen. I fished the bottle out of my pocket and dry-swallowed a couple of them.

Any time I hear someone complain about the hours they have to keep at their job, I can't help but be amused. Just sayin'.

I gave myself a little bit of time to let the pain killers kick in, then collected myself and got to work on the flash drive. Hill had given me a list of materials she needed me to collect and some instructions for what she wanted me to do with them. She was going to keep Sitwell off my back as much as she could and take care of the programming side of things.

The biggest thing on the list was three standard server blades from the R&D department. Hill's idea was to replace some of the hardware on the helicarriers with stuff that had new targeting programming. How she was going to accomplish that, I wasn't sure and I dreaded that planning session. If it came to needing to use the new programming, it was likely that we would find out after the damned things were in the air.

The other stuff were bits and bobs of computer hardware that, if pressed, I could get at a local Best Buy using one of my aliases. The server blades were going to be more of a challenge. I needed to find a way to make it so that they wouldn't be noticed missing until Hill had them long-gone to where ever she was going to squirrel them away. That meant replacing them with something similar enough that it wouldn't be noticed unless someone tried to use them. The fact that they were _standard_ server blades helped in that regard. I figured that I could raid the archives for some hardware that was a step or two outdated so they would look similar. All I'd have to do is replace them for the blank ones in a spot that meant they were unlikely to be used any time soon.

I tried to treat it like your run-of-the-mill retrieval mission. I had had to break in and sneak around lots of places to nab hardware, software, explosives, and some stuff I was never even told what it was. But breaking into my own organization and taking something? That was a new one. I had to work pretty hard to tamp down the weirdness of it. Plus, if I got caught, not only would Hill be able to do nothing to protect me, but I'd probably be branded a traitor and take her down with me. With this in mind, I left any sign that she had given me these instructions behind in my bolt hole.

Rule one of covert intelligence work; compartmentalize. It increases plausible deniability and keeps people from knowing things that could get coerced out of them. I was pretty good at keeping secrets under stress, but I could make damn sure that Hill could deny her way out if she needed.

Getting the server blades out of R&D was going to be challenge. I knew the protocols SHIELD had in place for securing their equipment and research and it was tight. Honestly, only an insider could do it. So, when it got discovered eventually, they would at least know that someone from SHIELD had been the culprit. I could only hope that whatever this was would be resolved by then.

I wasn't really known for being an R&D type of guy, but I did have one thing going for me. I had a reputation for pestering R&D for cool gadgets and tweaking my gear. And they always complained that when I got my foot in the door, I didn't leave until I got them to do the thing. So I decided the best way into R&D was to live up to that reputation.

Was that reputation deserved? No. Well... maybe a little. Either way, I wasn't above using it to my advantage.

An idea blossoming in my head, I grabbed my bow and quiver and made my way back out of my bolt hole, once again taking the long way around. I couldn't help but smile at the thought of what I was going to be trying. I was going to be so annoying and it was going to be the covert performance of a lifetime. It was going to be fun.

Did I just say that? Seriously, man. This job messes you up.

The first step was to obtain the decoys. I emerged from the air vents deep in the SHIELD archives. I had been on a retrieval mission about a year prior that had included some computer equipment. I was pretty sure there was a collection of server blades in what was recovered that would fit the bill. And since it had all been cataloged and processed and used as evidence already, no one was likely to be looking for them for a while.

The place was quiet as a graveyard and just as deserted. So it didn't take me long to fine the right archive, grab the old server blades, and pocket them. I was able to leave all the boxes back so no one was the wiser, even taking care not to disturb the dust on the shelf too much. Within just a few minutes, the old server blades were safely secured in a pocket of my cargo pants and I was on my way out of the archives. My clearance got me past the first security point without any trouble and I was already coming up with a way to explain my having been there.

I was rounding the corner of an aisle when the air vent above me suddenly burst open and a black-clad figured dropped to the ground, just behind me. On reflex, I whirled around, moving to deliver a blow to my assailant's solar plexus. Something grabbed that wrist and pulled as a mop of blond hair whirled around in my face. When that cleared, there was a metal cylinder sailing toward my head. I ducked it, rolling with the tug on my wrist and flipped, kicking my legs out at my opponent and landing on my back, ready to kip up. She danced around my attack at her legs and landed sitting on my chest before I could get back up. Before I could blink, two batons were on either side of my throat, crossed over each other. Just beyond them, I could see the suddenly surprised face of Bobbi Morse.

"Well, hey, handsome," she said, taking on a smirk and removing her batons, "sorry, didn't know it was you."

Suddenly her weight on my busted rib made itself known and I couldn't hold back the cringe. "Thanks, Birdie, this is really making this morning's dust up with Cap feel so much better," I ground out.

"Sorry," she said, giving a grimace, and rolling off and to her feet in a single graceful move. She held out a hand for me to take and pulled me up. "What are you doing down here, anyway? Thought you were tracking Romanoff."

"Still am," I said, "needed something from my bolt hole."

"More explosive arrows?" she asked, casting a gaze over my shoulder to my gear, her look sobering. "Things getting that serious?"

I sighed, looking away from her for a moment and shaking my head. "God, I hope not," I said, dragging my eyes back to her, "this scares me, Bobbi. Everything about this whole thing is just wrong."

"Yeah," she agreed, leaning up against the nearest shelf, "I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the idea of Captain America being a traitor. And I don't really feel like Sitwell cares if he's brought in alive or... not. And Romanoff..." She shook her head in disbelief. "Look, Clint, I know you disobeyed a kill order to bring her in and I know I wasn't exactly one of the people who was on your side at the time..."

"Not on my side at the time?" I said, incredulously, "as I recall, you threatened to break my bow on the justification that I clearly didn't have the balls to use it any more!"

"I know, I know, it was a low blow," she said with a smirk, "you're never gonna let that one go, are you?"

"C'mon, Mock! No one threatens the bow!"

"God, Hawk, you're so male!" she said with a laugh, then sobered again. "But seriously. Romanoff... I know I wasn't on board with having her around at first, but she's one of the best of us. Her going rogue... I know with her history it's looks like it's something to be expected, but it doesn't ring true."

"Yeah," I agreed, leaning against the shelf as well, "whatever this is, Bobbi, it goes deep and it's going to get ugly. And there aren't many who would give Nat a fair shake."

"Yeah, I know," she said, "which is why I hope you're the one to find her. I know you _will_. And she and I, we're not friends or anything, but, a fair shake... it's the least she deserves."

"It'll mean something to her to know you said so," I said, meaning every word.

"Don't you dare! She'll hold it over me forever!"

"Well, okay, I'll tell her you said she's a blood-sucking death-spider."

"Stop!" Bobbi said, rolling her eyes and pushing off from the archive shelf. "I gotta get going. Watch your back, Hawkeye." She tossed a wave over her shoulder as she headed out of the archives

"You too, Birdie," I called after her, watching her go for a moment. After she rounded a corner out of sight, I allowed myself a moment to center, feeling like a jerk for having misdirected her away from what I was doing. I had used our friendship to do it and that was just low. The fact that she hadn't picked up on it only made it worse. Luckily, I'd get a chance to apologize to her for it later. But at the time, I felt like an asshole.

Of course, then again, she _did_ sit on me...

* * *

Phase one of my plan complete, I headed to the R&D department for phase two. Waving a greeting to the department receptionist, I passed the security checks easily and rounded the corner into the tech labs.

I came up a little short when I ran right into Doctor Wentworth. She was seated at a computer station and I spotted some sort of ultra-localized wireless connection on her screen. A moment later, she placed a tube full of some kind of liquid within its range and typed a few commands. She looked up at me as I entered and minimized what she was working on, rather quickly. That was weird, since I had the clearance level to be in this lab and she knew it. Also, what was a geneticist doing in the tech labs? Something definitely rubbed me the wrong way about it.

Needless to say, I had no qualms about carrying out my little scheme on her.

I plastered a winning smile on my face and wandered in.

"Agent Barton," she acknowledged, sounding rather cold, "aren't you supposed to be looking for Agent Romanoff?"

"Waiting to hear back from some contacts," I said with a shrug, "taking care of my gear in the meantime." I pulled one of the explosive tip arrows out of my quiver and held it up. "Got anyone can look at the triggers on these? They seemed a little slow to go off, this morning."

"I saw the footage, they seemed fine to me."

"Well, okay, then," I said, pouring on my trademark sarcasm, "if the scientist wants to correct the trained marksman about the performance of his own gear, well..." I waved the arrow around a bit so that the tip whistled through the air between us. "I guess that's that and I'll just be on my merry."

The gesture had the desired effect. Wentworth's hand shot out and she grabbed my wrist to stop the arrow flailing about, looking as if it was going to reach out and bite her. "Perhaps I can have Harris take a look," she allowed, slowly letting go.

"Great!" I said, popping the arrow back into the quiver and taking it off my shoulder.

Wentworth paged Harris from one of the back labs using the intercom. I hovered nearby, casually leaning against her work station and peeking at her notes with feigned interest. I got right into her personal space and she shifted somewhat uncomfortably.

"Huh," I said, "extremis. Isn't that the stuff that Stark had a run-in with a while ago? Is it true it turns people into walking bombs?"

Wentworth looked up at me, an eyebrow raised in reprimand.

"C'mon, you know I'll just ask Stark," I pressed, pouring on the boyish mischief.

Wentworth rolled her eyes. "Yes, it turns people into bombs," she said with an exasperated sigh.

Harris entered the main lab just then. "Hey, the triggers on these don't seem right. Can you check the tolerances?" I asked him, handing over my quiver as Wentworth turned back to her notes.

"Sure," Harris said with a nod and then disappeared back into the depths of the lab. I went back to peeking over Wentworth's shoulder and gave a low whistle.

"Whoof! Looks like a crazy cocktail, there," I said, getting right into her space and poking a finger at her paperwork, "hey, why does GH325 have a question mark next to it?"

"Agent Barton!" she exclaimed, flipping the folder closed and pulling it away from me.

"Right, right!" I said, throwing up both my hands and stepping away, "need-to-know-stuff, got it. Can't blame a spy for spying, though, right?" She rolled her eyes again and turned back to her work while I began to wander around the room, poking at this and that and looking for the rack of server blades that I knew would be in the room somewhere. I spotted them fairly quickly, but skipped over them without showing any interest while Wentworth was in the room. Instead, I found my way to a workbench and began fiddling with a few tools. I feigned knocking them over, causing a clatter that echoed throughout the silent room.

"Are you quite finished?" Wentworth snapped, turning back to me with the look of an impatient parent.

"Sorry, sorry," I said, looking sheepish and putting the tools back in their proper places. I went back to wandering the room again and as I reached out to fiddle with something else, Wentworth spoke up again.

"Agent Barton, I know you're like a kid in a candy store, but please refrain from poking the research." Her voice was tight with annoyance. It was working. Just a little bit more...

"Oh, fine," I said, backing away from the object I had been about to touch, then moving over to a cleared counter and sat on it. It afforded me a clear view of her computer screen and I saw her once again minimize her work. "I'll just sit here, while I wait. You know, quietly."

It took me less than a minute to move on to the next annoyance. I pulled out my bow and started to repeatedly unfold and close it. I managed to continue this for a good three or four minutes, watching tension build in Wentworth's shoulders. She even seemed to twitch a few times. After putting the bow away, I moved on to drumming my fingers on the counter top. I started with a simple rhythm at first and then began to pick up the complexity, changing it often so that it _just_ failed to turn into white noise that could be ignored. Somewhere along the line, it kinda turned into the drum solo from Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida. Eventually, I added humming into the mix. Finally, it was adding in the lyrics which pushed Wentworth over the edge.

The tension in her shoulders had piled up into her neck and she suddenly pounded on the keyboard to lock her station and turned back to me.

"I think I'll go see what is keeping Harris," she said, tightly. She then beat a hasty retreat through the door that Harris had disappeared behind.

"Cool, thanks!" I called after her.

I didn't know how much time I had, so I moved quickly as soon as the door slid shut behind her and she was out of sight. I was across the room to the rack of blank server blades in a couple of strides, pulling the old ones out of my pocket as I did. Opening up the rack, it took what felt like an eternity for me to find the ones with Hill's specifications, pocket them, and shuffle around the others so that I could slip the old ones into a place they were unlikely to be looked at or used any time soon. I was just closing the cabinet when I heard footsteps approaching again and had just enough time to select another doohicky to fiddle with before both Wentworth and Harris came through the door with my quiver.

"Agent Barton!" This time, Wentworth sounded exactly like Laura when she's yelling at Cooper for climbing the trees by himself. I half expected to hear my middle name.

Francis, by the way...

"Sorry! Sorry!" I pleaded once again. "Just can't resist!" I wandered back over toward them and held out a hand for my quiver. "They okay, doc?" I asked Harris.

"I tightened up the pressure switches," he answered, handing it to me, "they were a little loose. Probably got shaken around a bit too much lately."

"Yeah, probably," I said swinging the quiver back over my shoulder, "you know how things go out there, sometimes." I turned and made my way for the door, tossing a wave over my shoulder. "Thanks, docs!"

I felt, more than saw, the glare that followed me though the door and I thought I heard Wentworth telling Harris to make sure I hadn't messed up anything. The act had been perfect. Suppressing a grin, I made my way to the motorpool to get a bike and head out of the Triskelion again. I had the rest of my shopping list to pick up.

* * *

A quick trip to a Best Buy later and I had the rest of the equipment Hill wanted me to nab. After that, I decided to look in on a few more of Natasha's haunts, to look like that was what I was out doing. I even took a few minutes to talk to a low-level snitch I paid sometimes. Good thing, too, since there was an agent in the bar at the time. Made the whole thing look nice and tidy.

After that, I stopped at a library and messaged Hill from a browser-based email address. Anonymity is so easy on the internet! Sometimes, I wonder how we track people at all, these days! This time, I chose the National Cathedral.

I insinuated myself into a tour pretty easily, which gave me a reason to hang out there until I spotted Hill. When she finally wandered in, the tour guide had us sitting under the stained glass that everyone calls the Space Window. Did you know that has a piece of actual moon rock in it? I didn't, but the tour guide went on about it proudly. Pretty kick-ass, actually.

Hill plopped down into the seat next to me and listened until the tour guide finished this stop. As the group moved off to the next stop, she and I stayed behind, and found a relatively quiet section of the narthex to chat.

Yes, I know what a narthex is. I read!

"Getting more and more spiritual on me, Barton," she said, "something you're worried about?"

"Would you look for us here?" I countered.

She gave a non-committal bob of her head in response. "Probably not," she said, "did you get them?"

"Any doubt?" I asked handing a backpack over to her.

Hill opened it up and looked inside. "This all looks new," she said.

"Except for the server blades it is," I said, "I figured, I already had to make off with those, why raise more red flags stealing other stuff, too? Plus, this has never been used, so it won't leave any known traces."

"Sold," Hill agreed, swinging the backpack onto her back, "I'll take care of the rest of this part. Rigby Fallon from the AI department is going to help me get these ready to go. He'll be in his own lab for most of the day, so if you need to pass messages to me, you can leave them with him."

"Don't think I've ever met the guy," I said.

"He's a nerd and a pain in the ass, but he's distrustful of authority, so, you'll like him," Hill said, "he told me about a weird breach of the SHIELD databases yesterday that I think might be a part of this whole thing. Besides, brought him in myself. I trust him."

"Works for me," I said, "can't be choosy anyway. If you trust him, I'll trust him as a contact."

"How's the rib?"

"Pain-killers are a god-send."

"I hear that. Check in with Sitwell, then see what you can do about catching some sleep. You look like hell."

"You don't look much better," I tossed over my shoulder as I turned to leave.

"Well, you sure know how to flatter a girl," she replied in kind, "get lost."

"Yes, ma'am!"

* * *

Sitwell did not look pleased when I checked in with him. He was just finishing dressing down a group of Rumlow's people when I found him. Something about the best lead they had had all day, an Apple Store, and losing Cap and Nat again. On one of the screens in Ops 3, the footage from the camera in one of the interrogation rooms was showing. There was a very uncomfortable-looking nerd-wannabe fidgeting in a seat, obviously looking like he was wondering what he had fallen into. He was wearing a nametag that proclaimed him to be an employee of the afore-mentioned Apple Store.

Nat had probably manipulated the guy like a boss. From the look of him, poor guy hadn't stood a chance.

"Agent Barton, where have you been?" Sitwell ground out, not even looking up from the file he was reading after he dismissed STRIKE.

"Looking for Natasha," I said, "sad to say, all my leads came up cold. Looks like she's counting on us knowing how she moves and where she goes, sir. Pretty much means all bets are off. None of our mutual contacts have seen or heard anything from her. She's a ghost. And it looks like she took Cap with her."

" _Almost_ a ghost," Sitwell said, nodding his head toward the monitor showing the Apple Store mook, "they turned up in a mall a few hours ago. We think they might have been trying to decode the data from the _Lemurian Star_."

I filed that bit of information away to make sure to get to Hill. It was a good bet at this point that Cap and Nat were on the trail of the source of whatever this was. Maybe we would be able to be in contact with them soon and have some answers, finally. I couldn't let that hope show around Sitwell, though. The more I saw of his actions, the less and less I thought he was on the right side of this. He wanted this kept bottled up, even from the rest of SHIELD.

Sitwell's eyes finally came off of the file he was reading and looked up at me. It was so sudden that I very nearly flinched. He had that look, the one that said he was carefully gauging my next reaction. I had to be very careful here. The guy wasn't as good as me, but he was still a level eight agent for a reason. This was one of those times where he already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask.

In short, it was me he was testing.

"Assuming they were able to decode the information, what might Agent Romanoff and Captain Rogers do from there?" he asked, his eyes boring into mine.

"It would depend on the nature of the data, sir," I replied, unflinchingly, my eyes locked on to his. We were having a weird battle of wills right then, both trying to glean information from the other without giving any up ourselves. "But if she got a lead from it, she'd chase it down, for sure."

"She would go wherever it leads then?"

"Yes sir," I replied, "like a bloodhound."

Sitwell's eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly, as he looked at me with a nod. There was something about that look that I really did not like, as if I had just threatened him. In retrospect, I suppose I sort of had.

"Hmm," he murmured. Finally, his eyes went back to the file he had been reading. "You seem tired, Agent Barton," he finally, said, "perhaps you should get some rest. I'll need you to be prepared for whatever comes of all of this."

"Yes, sir," I said, turning to leave.

I headed back to my bunk in the dormitories after that, mulling over the exchange as I went. I couldn't help but feel like Sitwell had managed to glean something out of it. I didn't know what. It's not as if I had lied; Natasha would follow any lead she had, once she got her claws into it. Hell, I had once gone with her all the way to Nepal just on a hunch. If she had something concrete, she would be all over it like red on a mob banker's books. And Sitwell knew that.

He had been testing me, trying to see where my loyalties lied, if I would continue to follow orders. He was getting suspicious of me and that wasn't good. And while I was grateful for the down time I'd be getting - God! I needed sleep! - it was worrying to be sidelined like that.

The best I could hope for now was to glean information off of Sitwell in return. So I started thinking about his line of questioning. He had asked me where Tasha would go with the information. Not what she would do with it, or who she would tell. Where she would go. And then he had confirmed that she would go somewhere if she was told a location. He was worried about a place.

That had to be what was on the flash drive from the _Lemurian Star_ , some sort of information about a place. And Nat and Cap were headed there to find out what was being hidden. Only problem was that I didn't know where "there" was. It could have been on the third floor or in a third world country, for all I knew.

Somehow, though, I had the distinct impression that Sitwell did.

Once again feeling that odd tingle that meant I was probably being watched, I decided not to press my luck and went back to my bunk instead of trying to retreat to my bolt hole. Sitwell had ordered me to get some rest and so had Hill. I needed it and I needed to look like I was still a good little soldier, following orders. So, off to bed I went and I made sure to be seen doing it. I would check in with Hill's nerd in a few hours to let them in on what I had learned.

I woke with a jolt when I felt the whole building rumble. On reflex, I reached for the knife that I kept under my pillow and sprang to my feet, ready for a fight. When I realized that I wasn't in immediate danger, I glanced over at the clock on my nightstand. It was just a little after 21:00. I had been asleep for about five hours.

Something big had just happened. And I knew where to go to find out what without being subjected to scrutiny. I hopped on the Triskelion directory and looked up the office for Rigby Fallon from the AI department. I made myself decent as quickly as I could and headed there.

Like I had told Hill, I had never met the guy. But I had met SHIELD computer nerds before. The brilliant minds that SHIELD Science churned out were usually cut from similar cloth; insular, in it for the research and the thrill of the work, and completely amazing at what they did and very little else. My title of Specialist was a bit of a misnomer, really, since I was trained in a variety of tactics, fighting styles, and sciences. The science guys were the ones who _really_ specialized.

So, I had an idea of what to expect when I got to Fallon's office. The place was a windowless cave that was aglow with little LEDs and computer screens all over the place. It was entirely too dark and the desk was a wall of monitors and readouts. Basically, exactly what you would expect from a coding geek with access to all the best toys.

"Whoever you are, close the door before the room heats up," came a voice from behind the monitors, "you're messing up my cooling system and this box is very sensitive."

"Uh, sure," I said as I closed the door, "sorry."

"Bad enough it took a jostle, just now," the voice continued amid the clatter of a keyboard, "solid state, cold super computer. What the hell was I thinking?"

I rounded the corner to the other side of the wall of monitors and was brought up short. Sitting in the chair at the desk was a kid who looked like he wasn't even of legal drinking age.

"Sorry," I said, "I'm looking for Doctor Rigby Fallon."

"Lookin' at 'im," said the kid.

" _You_ have a doctorate?"

"Three," he corrected absently, eyes still fixed on his monitors and still typing a string of commands into the computer, lightning fast. "And, then..." And here he made a flourish and hit the final keys to enter the sequence. A graphic of some sort of a pattern that looked like it came out of a spirograph popped up on the screen and Fallon reached for a microphone. "Flynn, what is your status?"

"Good evening Rigby," came a synthetic voice from the speakers of the computer, "I am operating within normal parameters."

"Why don't you let me be the judge, Flynn-boy. Full diagnostic."

"Process will take one hour and twenty-eight minutes."

"Execute." As the spirograph thingy was joined by a bunch of lines of code on the screen, Fallon spun his chair around to look at me. "Whew! Coulda lost three months of work in that... tremor." His eyes went wide as he looked me up and down. "Hey, you're that Avenger Agent, Hawkeye, right?"

"Lookin' at 'im," I parroted back, with a shrug.

"Phat," Fallon said with a grinning nod, "there's an Avenger in my office. Love this job. Maria said you might be stopping by."

I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the kid. How the hell did he get away with calling the Assistant Director of SHIELD by her first name? Only other person I knew who got away with that was Stark. Must have been a genius thing. If I had tried it, it would have earned me a trademarked AD Maria Hill Glare of Death.

"Assistant Director Hill," I said pointedly, "is who I'm looking for, actually. She told me I could trust you as a contact. Has she let you know what that rumble was?"

"Like I need her to tell me that," he said with a snort of derision, then turned back to his computer monitors and typed on the keyboard again. Within moments, a display from Ops 2 was splashed on a side monitor. "Whoo, yikes! Looks like we launched a missile. Or _three_!"

My jaw hit the floor. The Ops data wasn't supposed to be able to be accessed outside of the three Ops suites. Somehow, this kid had pulled up supposedly un-hackable information with a few keystrokes. "How did you-?"

" _Three_ doctorates," the kid interrupted, "more than two, less than four. Five is right out."

I didn't really know how to respond to that. He spun his chair back around to look at me again, a look of incredulity on his face. "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch?"

I shook my head. I had nothing.

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail?"

Still nothing.

"Wow. They must keep you pretty busy."

I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the utter confusion. "Just... where are the missiles headed?" I asked.

Fallon rolled his eyes and pulled up a map showing the path the missiles had taken. They had launched from the Triskelion and headed straight for...

"Jersey," said Fallon, "looks like some old, abandoned army base."

"What the hell is out there?" I mused, leaning over his shoulder to look at the map.

Abruptly the door to Fallon's office opened, spilling light in from the hallway. My knife was in my hand again and I turned toward it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fallon minimize the Ops feed.

"Cool it, boys, it's only me," Hill's voice came from the silhouette in the doorway. She closed it a moment later, allowing the light of Fallon's electronics to reveal her face.

"Getting jumpy," I said with a shake of my head, sheathing my knife. "You know anything about missiles headed for New Jersey?"

"Well, I'd consider it a public service to take out the cast of Jersey Shore," Hill replied, coming over and joining us at the computer, "but other than that..."

"Think that's where Widow and the old man are?" Fallon asked.

"If they were there," I mused, "we'd better hope they had already left. The place is flattened."

"Rogers and Romanoff can take care of themselves," Hill said, "we need to figure out who here could have launched those missiles and why."

"Sitwell," I said, "he has the clearances. And when I was talking to him earlier, he seemed pretty concerned with whether or not I thought that Cap and Nat would go where the data from the flash drive led."

"What did you tell him?" Hill asked.

"The truth," I said, "that Nat would sink her teeth in and not let go. It's not really a secret and I think Sitwell is watching me pretty close."

"Damn," Hill said, crossing her arms over her chest, "we're running out of time. Rig, where do we stand with the server blades?"

Fallon pulled up another window on another monitor, showing lines of code and and a progress bar. "Compiling the code, now," he replied, "gonna be an all-nighter, but I should have them ready by morning. After that, one in each ship and we're golden."

"Easy as that, hey kid?" I said.

Fallon scoffed again. "I'm the brains, you're the brawn, Hot Guy," he said, "that part's for _you_ to figure out."

Hot Guy? Hill was right. The kid was a pain in the ass.

"Listen, Cabbage Patch Kid," I started.

"Woah, man, way to get 80s!"

"Enough, children!" Hill broke in. "Rig, get those server blades ready. I'll come and collect them in the morning. Barton, get back with Sitwell in ops. I want eyes and ears on what is happening in Jersey and I want to know the minute they find any sign of Rogers and Romanoff. If you can, get on the team that Sitwell will be sending to Jersey. And I want the both of you ready to bug out of here tomorrow."

There was one thing that Fallon and I both agreed on and that was that the idea sounded frightening.

"It really comin' to that, Boss-Lady?" Fallon asked.

Hill shook her head with a deep, tired sigh. She had the kind of look that crushed your soul, when you saw a tidal wave coming and knew there was nothing you could do to stop it. She was about to come undone. We all were, really.

"We're about to lose our advantage on the inside," Hill said, "Cap and Widow are doing more on the outside and if we're going to get these server blades on the Helicarriers, we're probably going to need to join them. We'll make our move when we get a read on Cap and Widow."

Sobering, I nodded grimly. "Kid, you know how to put together a go-bag?" I asked Fallon.

The kid shrugged blithely. "Sure," he said, "that's part of standard training, even at the SHIELD Science Academy."

"Then I'd go get one together while this," I motioned to his bank of computers, "is doing its thing."

"Uh, I'm not a trained specialist or anything," Fallon replied with a look that said he clearly thought I was out of my mind, "but even I'm not so clueless as to think it's a good idea to leave a potentially treasonous program compiling on a computer, unattended."

"Won't be," I said, motioning him up and out of his chair, then taking the place myself, "you have an hour."

Fallon looked at me with a look like one of my kids uses when they're about to argue. It only made him look even younger. A reflex caused me to pull out the because-I-said-so face. The kid rolled his eyes and looked over to Hill with the but-mom-say-something face. Hill looked back at him with the do-as-your-father-says face. The kid rolled his eyes with with oh-fine-whatever face and made for the door.

It was the single most surreal conversation I had ever had at SHIELD and there wasn't a single word spoken.

"Don't touch anything until l get back," Fallon said as he exited.

I couldn't help but rub the bridge of my nose with a sigh, then looked up at Hill. "Really?" I asked. "This is who we're bringing into SHEILD now?"

"He's a brilliant programmer," Hill said with a shrug, "and we can count on him to keep this on the down-low. Besides, I remember some people saying something similar about you when Coulson brought you in. I believe Fury called you, what? A '22-year-old circus punk,' wasn't it?"

I didn't have a response to that. I had to cop to it. I kinda _was_ a brat at the time. Took Coulson kicking my ass for a full year for me to get it together.

"Don't be too hard on him," Hill continued, "he may be a work in progress, but he's a good kid."

"Yeah, all right," I allowed, with a wave of my hand.

"Listen, as soon as he gets back, I want you on Sitwell like glue," she said as I put my feet up on the edge of the desk and made myself comfortable, "as soon as he hears about Rogers and Romanoff, I want to hear about them. Don't worry about appearances after that, just tell me and get out."

"Rendez-vous?" I asked.

"Probably won't be time," Hill replied, "I'll need to get the server blades to Fury at that point. Just get out of DC and I'll find a way to contact you when the dust settles."

I nodded and then she went out the door.

With an hour to myself, watching Fallon's programs run on the banks of monitors, I let my mind wander a little. Unless a miracle occurred, I was about to be out in the cold. The walls of the Triskelion, which had up until now been a comfort and a place I could count on being safe, now felt like they were closing in on me and keeping me trapped. My world was turning upside down and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't even hang on.

I'm not ashamed to admit it. Well... okay, maybe a little embarrassed. But can you blame me? I cried a little just then, alone in a dark room, where I should have been safe but wasn't. In the center of the second best thing to happen in my life, outside of my family, watching it fall apart. I don't think I've ever felt as alone as I did right then.

I ran an op in Beijing, once. The details aren't important, but it resulted in my having to run from the city at about 02:00 and hide in the rainy Chinese countryside with nothing but a few MREs and my bow. It was cold, dark, wet, and miserable and I didn't think that there would ever be as bad a feeling as that, as being all alone in a dark, horrible, hostile emptiness.

As I looked around at Fallon's office, at all the blinking little lights and the displays on his computer monitors and everything, I suddenly knew there was something worse.

Being all alone in a scary crowd of people who know you.

* * *

The overnight hours were simultaneously nerve-wracking and boring as hell. I stuck with Sitwell in Ops 3 the whole time, tracking the same information that he was and watching for anything that I might be able to pass to Hill. At first, I tried to get myself on to one of the teams headed to Jersey to investigate the site the missiles had struck. But the time I spent hanging out with Fallon's computer had put the kibosh on that. Also, Sitwell said he wanted me close in case he needed me.

And if you buy that, I got a nice, red bridge to sell you in San Francisco.

No, he wanted me where he could keep an eye on me. The battle of wills we had overnight was intense. I didn't give him any reason to make a move on me, but I knew he could tell my defenses were up. His were too, and he wasn't alone. Any time Rumlow or Wentworth came in the room, he would talk to them in hushed tones, well away from me and always with an eye on me. At one point, Bobbi came in for a while and I noticed that they were treating her in a similar fashion.

Seeing this, I suddenly felt bad for having kept her in the dark about what Hill and I had been up to. I was also relieved to have reason to think she wasn't with Sitwell and his crowd. I resolved right then and there to try and get her to leave with me, if I could. Sadly, she was still looking at me as if she just wasn't sure.

Probably why it hadn't worked between us all those years ago. Trust issues.

Eventually, Sitwell left Rumlow and Wentworth in charge in Ops 3 and said something about having business to take care of. I tried to find an excuse to go with him, but he wasn't having it. He mumbled some stuff about clearance levels and whatever. He knew I was watching him just as he was watching me, I guess.

Hours passed. By then, I figured that Fallon had probably gotten the server blades to Hill. It was almost 13:00. The tension in Ops 3 was thick and almost no one dared to say anything.

The breath we were all holding finally let go when an ops tech suddenly leaped out of his chair and spun around to get Rumlow's attention.

"Sir!" he said. "We've had a sighting! Someone saw Captain Rogers!"

"Where?" Rumlow snapped.

"Some car on the Beltway," the tech said with some surprise, "plates are registered to a Sam Wilson. And... standby... field please repeat that?" After another pause, the tech turned back to Rumlow with wide eyes, disbelief written all over his face. "Sir, the field is reporting that there's a... bird-man? Flying around with Rogers and Romanoff?"

"Sir!" another tech broke in. "We just had visual confirmation. Rogers and Romanoff have Sitwell, sir!"

"How the hell...?" Wentworth mused, distressed.

"I'm out in the field with STRIKE," Rumlow said, turning on his heel and leaving Ops 3 at a tear.

"Get the asset out there, now!" Wentworth barked to the techs.

I didn't know what or who "the asset" was, not fur sure. But I had a frightening gut feeling. The whispered rumor, that urban legend of tradecraft; I had a sudden feeling that our worst nightmares were about to be realized. And as I watched the footage and heard the reports coming in, I found out with horror that I was right.

The Winter Solider.

He moved with a ruthlessness that I hadn't seen since back in the day when I was sent after Natasha, before I brought her into SHIELD. And he had skills and strength that rivaled Cap's. A battle of forces tore across the streets of DC as we watched. Natasha fighting STRIKE. Steve and the Winter Soldier tearing at each other. The guy with the mechanical wings darting in and out overhead like some sort of demented warrior angel. The area nearby became a warzone.

I faded into the background of the room as I watched, out of the way, where I knew I wouldn't be noticed in all of the chaos. It was pretty easy with the spectacle that was playing out on the displays. I stood still amid the insanity, watching everything play out, becoming invisible among all the noise and movement. I knew I had to get to Hill to report what was happening, but I wanted to get some indication of the outcome of this fight. Wentworth shouted orders and directed the people at her command with a brutal efficiency that didn't really seem like it belonged to a scientist.

Soon, I realized, Cap and Nat and their flying friend weren't going to make it out of this. I watched as the noose tightened. When it reached the point of no return, I carefully slipped from Ops 3 and headed out, hoping no one had noticed me leaving. I took off down the hallways of the Triskelion, making for Hill's office. It was only a few turns before I realized I had that tingle again. I picked up the pace and tried to check reflective surfaces for whoever was following me, but I never caught sight of them.

I practically skidded around the corner into Hill's office and pulled the door closed behind me.

"They've been found," I said, "and they're going to be caught. Nothing I could do. Cap, Nat, and some guy with them that's using some Airforce equipment codenamed Falcon. And the Winter Solider is there too."

"All right," Hill said, already reaching for her backup service weapon hidden in a locked desk drawer. "It's time for you to get out. Get to Rigby, get him out of here. I don't want him on Sitwell's Radar. Disappear. I'll take care of Rogers and Romanoff. We'll get their intel to Fury and take care of the Helicarriers."

I nodded as she got out of her seat and made for the door.

I couldn't help it. The world was spinning out of control. Everything had just gone stark-raving mad. I gave in to that little tiny voice in the back of my head that said that none of this could be what it appeared to be. I put my hand on the door before Hill could open it.

"Hill," I said, demanding her gaze. I had to be sure and I needed her to know that I needed it. "Maria. Are you sure about what we're about to do? Are you _absolutely_ sure?"

She took a deep breath, not taking her eyes off of mine. There was steel there, but fear, too. "I'm not sure of anything, any more, Clint," she replied, "except that I trust Fury and I trust Steve. And if they have reason to fight, I do, too."

That was all I needed. I nodded, my doubts retreating again. I wasn't betraying SHIELD. Fury _was_ SHIELD and Fury said to stop this from happening. And Captain America was fighting against it, too. There was no question I was on the right side of this, even if I _still_ didn't know what it was.

"Catch you on the flip-side, then," I said, putting out a hand to Hill. She took it a moment later.

"Watch yourself out there, Barton," she replied, "I have a feeling we're going to need you after all this."

With that, we opened the door and exited back into the hallway, ready to head in opposite directions. We allowed ourselves one last wordless pause to look back at each other. I knew this was the last I would be seeing of her for a while. And I could tell, she knew, too.

It was all right, though. We had said what needed saying.

* * *

That tingle stayed with me as I sped back to my quarters in the dormitory to retrieve my go-bag. It turned into a very insistent buzz as I made my way to Fallon's nerd-cave. But still, I couldn't catch whoever it was that was following me. I didn't have time to deal with it until I got out of the Triskelion, though. I knew I had been made, but it didn't matter any more.

I tore open the door to Fallon's office and snapped it shut again behind me. In surprise, he jumped up out of his chair, peering over his monitors.

"Time to go, kid," I told him, "grab your bag."

"Maria?" he asked, as he reached under his desk and pulled out a duffle. I heard the rattle of some bits of tech and figured he had backed up some of his research and programs.

"Already doing her thing and the less we know, the better," I replied, "now c'mon."

The kid scrambled around the desk and joined me near the door.

"Now look," I said, "you have adrenaline, your heart's going a mile a minute. Everything in you is telling you to run, get out as fast as you can. But you can't. You have to keep your head and walk, just like we're strolling out of here for a lunch break. You got it?"

The kid looked impossibly young as he clutched his bag and and nodded.

"All right, here we go," I said, grabbing the door handle and opening it.

A hand was immediately in my chest, shoving me back into the office. Behind me, Fallon went stumbling and fell on his butt. The door snapped closed again and I just barely registered that the hand pushing me belonged to Bobbi. The buzz vanished as she revealed herself and I suddenly knew she had been the one following me since I left Ops 3.

"You're bugging out?" she asked, incredulously. "Now? What the hell, Clint?"

"Aw, c'mon, Bobbi," I began.

"Don't 'aw c'mon Bobbi' me!" she exclaimed, arms akimbo and glaring knives at me. It brought flashbacks. "You know more about what's happening than you've told me, so spill! Where are you going and what the hell is happening around here?" And then she looked past my shoulder to Fallon. "And who the hell is this kid?"

I rubbed the bridge of my nose for a moment. This was hardly the way I would have chosen to get word to Bobbi about what was happening. But she had forced my hand. I suppose I probably should have expected it.

"Agent Bobbi Morse," I said, gesturing between the two of them, "Doctor Rigby Fallon."

"This kid's got a doctorate?"

"Three," Fallon and I both corrected at the same time as the kid picked himself off the floor.

"Whatever," Bobbi said with a shake of her head, "I assume this has something to do with the disaster taking place in Ops 3?"

"Look, Birdie," I said, trying to soften my tone, "it's Cap and Tasha. Sitwell's guys are about to catch them. Hill and I have reason to believe that they have been on the trail of something rotten in SHIELD. We've been working to stop it, but bottom line, if we don't, a lot of people could get hurt. With Steve and Nat about to be caught, Hill wants me and Fallon here out of DC."

"And then what?"

"I don't know!" I exploded back at her. "I have no friggin' clue! I can't trust my own people, Fury's out of the picture, and Captain freaking America's been labeled a traitor! So, no! I _don't_ know 'and then what!' I have no goddamned idea!"

Silence in the room for a long moment. I could swear I heard my words echoing off the concrete walls.

"Been holding that in for a while?" she asked after a long moment.

"Yeah," I said, my eyes sliding away from hers and to the floor.

There was another long pause and Bobbi sighed heavily.

"And you know for sure that this is happening?" Bobbi asked me. I could see the same spark of doubt in her eyes that had been in mine just a little bit ago, with Hill.

"Wouldn't be here if I didn't know, Mock," I replied.

And just like that, I saw the doubt in Bobbi's eyes vanish. It was amazing what hearing an affirmation from the right person could do. Especially when you consider our line of work and the stuff we normally deal with. Needless to say, trust doesn't come easy in this business. Small miracles...

"Always knew Sitwell was a snake," Bobbi said with another sigh, "all right. But I'm coming with you and you're going to fill me in on everything."

"Deal," I said.

"Hey, don't I get a say in this?" Fallon put in.

"No," Bobbi and I replied in unison, immediately.

"How'd you get stuck being a babysitter?" Bobbi asked me.

"Not that different from Stark, really," I said with a shrug as I pulled open the office door once again.

"Hey, speaking of Stark, think you could put in a word for me?" the kid asked. "Maybe get me a little face-to-face time with Iron Man?"

"Kid, don't make this day any longer than it's already going to be," I said as we all started down the hallway, trying not to look like some kind of demented spy family.

I doubt we really succeeded all that well.

* * *

Not wanting to go too far, we decided to make for a bolt hole that Bobbi had in Georgetown. There's an old building on the campus there, dating back to the 1890s that used to be a trolley depot. They call it the Car Barn. It's been converted into classrooms and offices, but some of the old garage areas remain, more or less cut off from the rest of the building by remodeling. The space was pretty cramped for three people and their gear, but it sufficed and Bobbi assured us that she had not had it on record anywhere but in her head. Plus, since it was an academic building, it had WiFi, so our nerd could hack back into the SHIELD systems and keep an eye on things.

Evidently, it only took Hill a few hours to make her own move. Reports were that the transport with Cap, Nat, and some guy named Sam Wilson never made it back to the Triskelion. And no one could find Hill. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened.

This is another reason why I like Hill. She looks like an office monkey most of the time, but she can kick some serious ass. If you don't know her, you'll never see it coming.

There wasn't much for us to do but wait and assess our options. Fallon's eyes stayed on his computer for most of our time there and Bobbi spent a great deal of time pacing. While we were there, we learned that Sitwell had been killed in the fight that afternoon. I could only hope that Cap and Nat had gotten the intel out of him that they needed.

"Portland?" Bobbi asked me.

"Nah, I'd feel guilty for not looking in on Phil's cellist friend, Audrey," I replied, "and if I were to be tracked while looking in on her, I'm pretty sure Phil would haunt me forever."

A strange look passed over Bobbi's face just then, like she wanted to tell me something. In the end, though, she kept it to herself. Probably just as well. I wasn't exactly in the mood for touchy-feely while Fallon was around.

"What about Houston?" I asked.

Bobbi immediately shook her head. "Jamie Slade's there," she replied, "that's the last thing we need right now. What about Miami?"

"Two words," I said, "William Cross."

"Still?"

"He was on my to-do list, but then aliens started falling out of the sky in New York," I said, "my priorities kinda shifted. Milwaukee?"

"Juston Seyfert," Fallon spoke up, still not taking his eyes off his computer screen. There was long pause as Bobbi and I looked at him. Truth be told, we had kinda forgotten he was a part of the conversation. When he realized that we were not responding, he turned to look at us, clearly insulted. "What? Hackers can't have enemies, too?"

"I think we can take a code monkey," I said.

"Fine," said Fallon, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "but you guys get to deal with his killer robots, too, 'cause I'm not-"

"And scratch Milwaukee off the list," said Bobbi. She gave a sigh, resuming her pacing and trying to stretch out the muscles in her neck while Fallon went back to his computer. "There must be _somewhere_ we can go where none of us have extra complications."

"Well, you can add one more complication to the list," Fallon said, "in addition to Captain Rogers and Agent Romanoff, the SHIELD database now lists an APB for Agent Hill and..." He turned around with a flourish and pointed two fingers directly at me. "You, my friend."

"Aw, hell, that was fast," I groused, scrubbing a hand down my face, "what about you two?"

"Not so far," Fallon replied, "I've got a pinger set up. If our names show up, we'll know right away."

"In the meantime, you two have a little extra breathing room that I don't," I said, "I think we should split up. You two go wherever you need to and I'll go someplace completely different. It'll keep heat off of you two for a little while longer, anyway."

"Well, in that case, lady," Fallon said, looking up at Bobbi with a look that clearly said he had certain _intentions_, "how about you and I go someplace romantic? I was thinking maybe-"

"Don't!" Bobbi cut him off. "First, we keep our destinations secret from each other, in case any of us gets caught. Second... I don't want to be arrested for statutory rape!"

"I'm 19!"

"The answer is still no, kid, so get your hormones under control."

I couldn't help but laugh. This earned me a death glare from Bobbi. That, in turn, just made me laugh harder. "Give it up, kid," I said, "you'd never survive it. I barely did."

"Still might not," Bobbi groused back at me, deepening the death glare. Apparently, I was in the mood to live dangerously. "What does this do to your resources, Clint?"

Sobering, I reached for my go-bag and pulled out the fake IDs I had in it. As I began going through them, I realized that very little of them were worth anything, with a SHIELD APB out on me. I tossed the credit cards aside immediately, along with the three drivers' licences. The passport I had was garbage, so I was staying in the States. Finally, I tossed it all aside and held up the stack of 50-dollar bills that rounded out the kit.

"That's it?" Bobbi asked.

"Yeah," I said, "and I don't dare go to any of my cashes here in DC. They might be watched."

"I've got a cache we can raid," she replied, "got a few extra papers in it that might fit you. We'll go after dark. Meantime, how's grub sound?"

* * *

We left Fallon in Bobbi's bolt hole and told him, in no uncertain terms, he was not to leave until we got back. Predictably, he whined at this, saying he wanted to get food, too. Finally, we had to promise him some crappy fast food pizza, one all to himself, when we got back. We picked up two and Bobbi and I each ate a few pieces of one while we made our way to her hidden cache.

We made our way to the little corner of land where the Potomac and Anacostia rivers came together. The block boarded by First, Second, R, and S was a run-down little junk yard without a whole lot of security on its borders, surrounded by a chain-link fence and a few trees. It was an easy thing to hop the fence and get inside. In fact, I did it still munching on a slice of pizza.

"Nice place you got here," I said.

"It's not glamorous," she admitted, "but the owners don't believe in barbed wire and it's constantly changing, so it makes for a nice little hiding place. Even if the cache gets found, you can come back in a month and set it again, since the whole place might look different."

Bobbi led the way through the junk yard and toward the section that held the old rusting husks of cars and trucks that had outlived their drive systems. She shined a dim flashlight on to several old rust heaps, looking for a particular one. But as we rounded a corner, we stopped dead in our tracks when we came upon something that looked to be a small problem.

There was a dog, standing right in the middle of the path, looking straight at us. It was some kinda golden-brown mutt with matted hair and a worn-looking collar.

That's right. We seriously ran into a junk yard dog. Cliche anyone?

" _He_ wasn't here before," Bobbi said with some trepidation.

I looked again at the dog. His ears were perked up and his tongue flicked out to lick his chops. Tail giving a wag, he sat, his eyes fixed on us. Unconsciously, I took another bite of my pizza and that was when the dog gave a little whimper.

"Huh," I said, taking a step toward him.

"He's gonna bite you," Bobbi warned.

"I don't think so," I replied, keeping my voice even as I approached, "I don't think you're gonna bite me, are you buddy?" The dog's tail sped up its wag as I came closer and reached out a hand. He sniffed it, then looked back up at me, one foot pawing the air in the general direction of my other hand, still holding the last few bites of my pizza. "You hungry?" Gingerly, I held out the pizza to him and he snarfed it up, hungrily, his tail wagging his whole behind, now. "There, now, he can't be all bad, Mock. He likes pizza." After practically inhaling the pizza, the dog went on to lick my hands and face, still wagging his tail, mouth hanging open in one of the goofiest, most stereotypical I-just-met-you-and-I-love-you dog faces. I reached for his collar and found the tag. "Huh," I said, looking up at Bobbi with a grin, "Arrow."

"Well," Bobbi said with a roll of her eyes, "they say if you want a friend in Washington to get a dog. If you get fleas, you're not coming back in my bolt hole." She wandered past me and the dog, her flashlight settling on a particular car.

"Aw, you don't have fleas, do ya, boy?" I said, giving into the temptation to use that cute baby voice that people use when talking to their pets and still petting him up and down. "No, no fleas on you. You're someone's buddy, aren't ya?"

"I suppose you're going to bring him home with you?" Bobbi said, wrenching open a rusted car door and working a crowbar into the joint between the metal outside and the plastic finishing inside. In moments she popped the plastic off and was digging around inside the rusting metal. A moment later, she produced a sealed plastic bag with some IDs and some cash. She took the money and a few documents out and tossed the rest to me. "You're welcome to anything there," she said.

I didn't take much, selecting only a fake ID with a male name and a couple of matching credit cards. A little bit of time back at the bolt hole and I could put my own picture on the ID easily enough. I gave the rest back to Bobbi and she stashed it into her backpack, then placed the car door back as quietly as she could.

"All right, that's that," she said, heading for the fence where we had come in, "let's blow this place."

"Yeah, Fallon's probably eating his own arm, by now," I agreed, standing up, "c'mon, boy!" As I followed Bobbi, the dog excitedly followed me.

"Are you kidding me?" Bobbi asked me.

"Aw, c'mon, Birdie," I implored, "tag says home is just over on 6th. We're passing by that way anyhow. He looks like he's been lost for a few days."

She looked skyward with a sigh. "Sport, I never could say no to your puppy dog eyes."

We swung by the address on Arrow's collar on our way back to Georgetown. It was a rowhouse, in the block between H and G, with a friendly red door at the top of a white concrete stoop. I couldn't help myself. Even though I couldn't risk being seen, I still had to make sure the family got their dog back. There was a small brick landscaping wall just across the street I was able to hide behind. I told the dog to stay on the stoop, then hit the doorbell with a putty arrow.

A middle aged woman answered the door and Arrow went crazy, jumping up and down and all wags and licks. It wasn't long before the woman turned around and called into the house. Two kids, a girl and a boy about Lila and Cooper's ages appeared at the door. They both gave yelps of joy when they saw the dog and quickly ushered it inside. The woman remained behind long enough to find my putty arrow still stuck to her doorbell. She peeled it off and looked around, puzzled. As she retreated indoors, I heard her call for her husband.

I gotta say, the globe-trotting, the alien-fighting, the acrobatics, hell even getting an action figure of yourself; it's all pretty awesome. But none of that is why I do what I do. None of that is why I stay on with the Avengers, even after all that's happened. That little row house, those kids, missing their dog, the every day heroics; that's why I do what I do. In the realm of gods, monsters, and aliens, it's easy to lose track.

Bobbi nudged my side after a moment. "You about done, you big softie?" she said with a knowing smile.

"Yeah," I said, completely unable to wipe the contented smile off my face as we both turned to leave.

* * *

By the time we got back to the Car Barn, I was pooped and my latest dose of ibuprofen had long since worn off. We decided to spend the night there and part ways in the morning. I must have looked like hell, because Bobbi very nearly hit me in the head to make me take the first shift sleeping. As I settled in to try and get comfortable on my sore side, I once again mulled over my options.

My mind spun around and around. I immediately dismissed any SHIELD facilities outside of DC. There were still plenty of people around that I felt I could trust, but I didn't want to put anyone else in the uncomfortable position of having to choose whether or not to turn me in. I thought about trying to find Fury, Hill, Natasha, and Cap, but I had no clue where to even begin looking. After all, if there's one thing SHIELD agents are good at it's hiding. I figured I'd probably get caught while trying to find them or worse give them away. I thought about trying to go public with what I already knew, but I had to admit that it really wasn't much. What I knew, what I had proof of, probably wouldn't make it above the fold of the Washington Post.

Around and around my head went and eventually, I was left with only one option that seemed viable at all; the Avengers. Even if I was done in SHIELD, I still had a team. Stark, Banner, they would sure put stock in what I already knew about. They had seen some of the seedier side of SHIELD for themselves. And they would have some resources that might be needed if everything went to hell.

So, that was that. That was where I was going. New York City.

My decision finally made, I slipped off to sleep with plans of getting to Manhattan running through my head.

* * *

Bobbi shook me awake around 05:00 and we switched off. Fallon continued sleeping until almost 08:00, then was back on his computer again, catching up on the latest and muttering obscenities about the taste of MREs. Not that I could blame him. They do taste kinda like sand. But c'mon, we had bigger things to worry about.

I was using my own computer to try and find a schedule for a bus to New York. Fallon's cursing suddenly escalated, then he looked up at me with urgency. "Uh... we got problems," he said, eyes wide.

I set my computer aside and shook Bobbi awake. "What's going on?" I asked Fallon. At those words, Bobbi snapped awake, suddenly alert.

"Uhh..." Fallon seemed uncertain, as if he wasn't sure how to break the news,. "They've activated Project Insight. They're getting ready to launch the helicarriers."

"Damn!" Bobbi bit out. "How long?"

"About two hours," Fallon answered.

"Did Hill manage to replace the server blades?" I asked. "Can you tell?"

"I embedded a code to send a signal to my box if they were active," Fallon replied, "and I'm not getting that signal. They're not in there."

"Can you stop the launch?" Bobbi asked.

Fallon gave a grimace and shook his head. "I'm good but I'm not _that_ good. Just trying to take over the countdown would be like posting online 'hello! Rigby Fallon and his merry band of traitors are right here!' _And_ I'd probably fail like a noob."

"So, what, we just sit here and watch?" Bobbi said, incredulously.

"Well, there's still two hours," I said, "maybe Hill will be able to-"

"What the hell?!" Fallon exclaimed, drawing our attention back. "The countdown just... vanished! They're launching now!"

"Jesus!" I breathed. "Someone is pressing them! Kid, stay here and keep an eye on that. I'm going out to see. We should be able to see the launch from here."

"Wait, I'm coming with you," Bobbi said, digging a pocket radio out of her pack and putting an earbud in. She followed me as I left the bolt hole.

As soon as we got outside, there was a terrible noise in the air coming from the direction of the Potomac. Water was churning and a tremendous clanking and grinding of metal gears was echoing through the whole district. The ground rumbled a little and soon, the silhouettes of three advanced helicarriers began to rise out of the river just beneath the Triskelion. I kept hoping to see some sign that the launch was aborting, but they just continued to rise as we watched.

I didn't have any words. I was horrified. All I could see was the mysterious shadow that was apparently manipulating Project Insight. There was no accountability, no way of knowing who was behind it.

At least, until right then.

"Oh, my god," Bobbi breathed, her hand pressing on the earbud in her ear. I had never heard her so shocked. "Clint..." She held out the other earbud to me, her face pale, her eyes wide with what I could only describe as terror. It was not what I was used to seeing from Bobbi Morse.

Fearing what I was about to hear, and still unable to take my eyes off of the rising helicarriers, I put the earbud in my ear and listened.

" _Repeating once again, breaking news_ ," said the voice on the radio, " _WTOP sources have confirmed that Captain America has publicly claimed that the world-wide intelligence organization knows as SHIELD has for decades been a front for Hydra, a terrorist organization that was founded during World War Two and which was thought to have been eradicated._ "

The exclamation died in my throat and I felt like I had been punched in the solar plexus. I could feel Bobbi next to me, trembling. Or was that me? It was hard to tell.

Hydra. The shadow that Hill and I had been chasing for days, the nameless malice that was manipulating Project Insight to its own ends. It was Hydra, the darkest shadow of all, the greatest evil of the 20th century, now crawling out of hiding in the 21st. And the worst part of all was that it was crawling out of our own damned bed. And odds were pretty good it had already bitten us and we had been poisoned.

_"Captain America has promised the world that proof of his claim is about to be made public,"_ the broadcaster continued, _"though we still do not know what form that proof will take. Meanwhile, the Triskelion, which is the main headquarters of SHIELD, is launching three massive aircraft as we speak, the purpose of which has yet to be revealed, although we have been warned that Hydra is behind the launch."_

I couldn't listen to any more. I had no reason to doubt what Steve had said. Everything I had seen had pointed to something beyond rotten, but I never imagined this. Not in my wildest nightmares.

I ripped the earbud out of my ear and turned to head back into the bolt hole.

"Clint!" Bobbi exclaimed in surprise, taking the other ear bud out of her ear. "Where are you going?"

"To get my bow," I snapped back, not breaking stride.

"To do what?" she shouted back at me.

"Cross off some Hydra bastards!" I replied.

"And how are you going to do that, Clint? Even if you could tell who was Hydra and who was SHIELD, how would you get past those airborne killing machines to do it? You're good, but even you'll get killed! What do you expect to be able to do?"

"I dunno!" I very nearly screamed at her, turning back, hearing it echo off the red brick of the Car Barn even over the din from the Potomac. "I don't know, Mock! But I can't just stand here and watch! I just found out that the cause I believed in, the thing I've been loyal to for half of my _life_ , may have been a stinking lie the whole futzing time! I've been _used_ , Bobbi! I've kill..." The words turned to ash on my tongue as the full implication of it hit me. It was another punch to the gut. My voice dropped to a quieter volume. "I've _killed people_ for them!"

Was that Loki laughing I could hear in the back of my brain? God, I am one screwed up bastard!

"Oh, God, Bobbi, I've killed people for Hydra!"

I could barely breathe. My chest was heaving as if I had just run a marathon with Cap.

A moment later, Bobbi's hands were on my shoulders. "Clint, don't do this to yourself," she said, desperate to cut through my rising panic. "I need you sane right now, Hawkeye. Because if you lose it, I don't have much hope of keeping it together." Her face was a mask of stony indifference, but her eyes told a different story. She was panicking, too. You needed to know her to see it, but her mind was whirling just like mine was.

We stood there, like that, for a long moment, just looking at each other and trying to draw strength from whatever friendship and memories and support that was between us. In the distance, the noise grew more intense. It was joined by gunfire and explosions and breaking glass. Neither of us dared to look. We knew that if we did, we would both crumble.

"We are agents of SHIELD," she said, "say it."

"We are agents of SHIELD," I said.

"You are an Avenger! Say it!"

"I am an Avenger!"

"What do Avengers do?"

"Avenge what we can't save."

"And what do agents of SHIELD do?"

"Shield the world!"

"Hydra's not going to stop us from doing that," Bobbi affirmed, "not now, not ever. But we need to regroup. That." She pointed across the Potomac, her eyes not leaving mine. "That is out of our hands. We've done what we can here. We need to leave and find others. We need to start rebuilding."

I finally had my breath under control and I nodded. "We stick to our plan," I agreed.

"I'll take the kid with me," she said, "you go be an Avenger."

"Yeah," I said, "let's go do it."

Still clinging to each other, Bobbi and I went back into the bolt hole in the Car Barn. Fallon was there, frantically saving files to a couple of 3-terabyte hard drives he had.

"Where the hell have you been?" he asked as we entered. "Cap's evidence just hit the web. Every single file saved on SHIELD's database in one massive file dump. Every classified file from every level. And you'll never believe whose fingerprints are all over them."

"Hydra," I said.

"Okay, so... maybe you will believe it," Fallon replied, sounding a little disappointed that he didn't get to make a big reveal, "I'm making two copies, one for each of us to take with us. God only knows how long the files will be up and who's going to cover it up. If anyone's going to clear Captain America's name, we need to be sure we can back up everything he's been doing these past few days."

"Good thinking," Bobbi said, returning to her pack and shoving things into it, "finish as quick as you can. We're leaving."

"You got one of those finished?" I asked Fallon, motioning to one of the drives. He slid one over to me and I tossed it in my pack, along with what remained of my supplies. I could last a week without having to buy food, if I needed to. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that. "All right, I'm moving," I said, swinging my backpack over my shoulder and holding a hand out to Fallon, "keep doing what your doing, kid."

Fallon paused what he was doing and looked up at me in surprise. For the first time since I had met him the previous day, there was no spark of arrogance in his eyes, no wide-eyed excitement for life to be a grand adventure. He couldn't seem to find anything to say, so he took my hand and gave it a firm shake.

What? You thought I hated him?

As I passed her, Bobbi planted a kiss on my cheek. "Careful out there," she said, "and good hunting."

"Good luck," I replied. I allowed those two words to say everything that I wanted to. Bobbi got it.

I was on the move fast, keeping to side streets and park paths to keep out of sight and out of the way. I made for the Foggy Bottom metro station, since it was the nearest. If the light rail was running, I'd be able to blend into the doubtless thousands of people trying to get out of the area around the Triskelion. If they weren't running, I'd have a nice, safe underground pathway to pretty much anywhere I needed to go in the district.

The Foggy Bottom metro is only a few blocks from the Watergate Complex, so my path kept me near the Potomac most of the way. This meant I had a pretty good view of everything that was happening. I saw the three helicarriers suddenly turn and target each other and I knew what caused it. I saw them fall out of the sky, one of them slamming into the Triskelion. I couldn't help but pause for a moment when that happened. I knew that, out there in the rest of the world, there were probably fights going on at every SHIELD facility, everywhere.

SHIELD really was finished.

The chaos in the city was enough of a distraction to allow me to pass though the emergency responders that were around. The metro wasn't running out of Foggy Bottom, but I was able to slip into the tunnels without any trouble at all.

It was time to disappear. So I did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FROM THE EDITOR...
> 
> This chapter got away from me a little and got longer than originally intended, mostly because it contained the bulk of what happened CA:TWS and it was complex to weave it in and out without changing anything. I decided to take the biggest lingering question that I had from the movie and address it; where did they get those oh-so-convenient server blades that reprogrammed the helicarriers? They just sort of appear after Hill rescues Cap, Nat, and Sam and brings them to Fury. I figured that it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for Clint to have had a hand in making them ready.
> 
> I drew on some obscure Marvel lore for a few of the other characters mentioned. Rigby Fallon, William Cross, Jamie Slade, and Juston Seyfert all have Marvel-616 precedent. Given that we've now been introduced to William Cross' cousin Darren in Ant-Man, I hold out hope that we will one day see Crossfire in the MCU.
> 
> And yes, that was supposed to be an MCU version of Lucky the Pizza Dog. I couldn't resist. Originally, I was going to have the dog follow Clint on his way out of DC, but I decided that it just wasn't practical. And then, the Clint Barton that has taken residence in my brain protested just leaving him behind and whined that he had to be taken home. What can I say? It's my head-canon.
> 
> See you all in the next chapter! And remember! Fic authors love reviews!


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SHIELD has fallen and Hawkeye is on the run. With no one to trust, he heads for the one place he knows is not a Hydra base in disguise; Stark Tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> INTERLUDE TWO
> 
> I know, I know. This looks bad.
> 
> Trust me, it feels worse.
> 
> So, I hear you wondering, what exactly did I get myself into this time? Why am I limping through the streets of New York on a busted ankle, with a dislocated shoulder, a shiner the size of a baseball and god-only-knows what else wrong with me?
> 
> Long story short, they caught up with me and now I'm heading to the one place where I have a chance in hell of being safe.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking forward to the fact that I'm never going to live it down. Stark isn't exactly known for subtlety, after all, or for letting shit go. But there is exactly one thing I know about him that makes him my number one go-to at the moment.
> 
> I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Stark is not Hydra.
> 
> Let me catch you up.
> 
> So, after Bobbi helped me get out of DC, things got way more complicated than I ever could have figured...

I wish I could say it had been a long time since I had taken a bus. One would think that with all the covert travel methods that SHIELD had it wouldn't be necessary. But the fact of the matter is that the bus is a surprisingly easy way to travel without being tracked. You can pay cash, buy a ticket on the spot, no one questions when you board with only a backpack, and people usually don't want to interact with you. Consequently, I found that I had needed to do it pretty frequently.

It's about five hours from DC to New York City. And what with everything going on, the buses weren't exactly running on time. I took a bus that let me off in Brooklyn. There were a couple of covert SHIELD bases in Manhattan and I figured getting off elsewhere would let me get the lay of the land. The last thing I needed to do was step off the bus and run smack into Hydra. By the time I got off the bus, the sun was setting behind the Manhattan skyline.

My first order of business was to find somewhere with free wifi and check the local news for reports of fighting. Four SHIELD hideouts were mentioned in police reports over the last day. So I had a pretty good hunch those were already compromised. There were two more that weren't mentioned; one in Brooklyn in Bed-Stuy and another in Harlem in Manhattan. I would have to check them out to see how things fell.

Bedford-Stuyvesant was a little ways north of where I was, so that was my first stop. The SHIELD hidey-hole was on Thompkins Ave, hidden inside a little Spanish-American cafe just across from the Brooklyn 79th Precinct. That made surveillance a little risky, of course, which was one of the reasons SHIELD had chosen the spot in the first place. Normally, I'd find a rooftop and watch for a few hours, but people tend to get edgy if they see a guy on a roof near a police station. And the inevitably fast response time from the station would make a getaway nearly impossible. So I had to get creative.

Looking around I spotted a van for a cleaning service. It was apparently operating somewhere in the area because the doors were open and no one was with it. It was pretty easy to pop in, find a spare jacket and hat with the same logo as the truck and some cleaning supplies. I chose a graffiti tag on a building next door to the precinct and got to work scrubbing at it. It was a pretty bold place to put a tag and looked like it had been hastily done. Probably some dare by a punk kid.

No one looked at me twice and that included the people going in and out of the cafe. I was able to watch the place for a couple hours. I was just beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, this spot wasn't compromised when I saw something that made my stomach lurch.

Doctor Deidre Wentworth came out of the cafe just as the "owner" was putting out the closed sign. I quickly bent my head down and scrubbed at the graffiti tag more intensely, letting the hat cover my face as much as possible without looking like I was trying not to be seen. Wentworth passed only a few yards away from me as she left and I could hear her end of a phone conversation.

"No, he hasn't turned up here," I heard her say as she went by, "nothing on any surveillance, either. If Barton came to New York, he's not in Brooklyn, as far as we can tell."

Crap.

At least that question was answered. Lay of the land? Futzing awful. For some reason, Hydra's goons were looking for me. I couldn't fathom why, at the time. I mean, what made me any more valuable than Cap or Tasha or Hill, at this point? Their secret was out, the world knew Hydra had festered inside SHIELD. So what was so special about me?

Still, it made my day harder, but it didn't change my end goal. I had one other SHIELD hideout to check in on and then I needed to get to Stark Tower. I let Wentworth leave without so much as a visible reaction and finished scrubbing the graffiti tag off the wall, then moved on after discarding the company clothes I had borrowed from the van.

Yes, borrowed. I left them at the van for the cleaning guys to find. What do you take me for?

* * *

It took me most of the night to get from Brooklyn to Harlem. I took a very round-about route, hoping to blend in with whatever activity there was in the ungodly hours of the night. Don't ask me for specifics, I don't really remember. There was a bridge involved.

Needless to say, the first open coffee shop I came across I stopped in and ordered the biggest, darkest coffee they had. And a muffin. I like muffins.

The last SHEILD hideout I needed to check off my list was on west 126th street, in a five-story row-house with a white facade on the ground floor. There was an empty row-house lot on the west side and I knew the entry to the hideout was hidden there. It was right across from a nice, tall building I could perch on top of to watch for a while.

No one came in or out of the place for several hours. By the time it was almost 10:00, I was beginning to think the place had been all-out abandoned after everything that had happened. I was just thinking about moving in to check it out up close when all hell broke loose.

A guy suddenly came stumbling through the empty lot, gripping a bag tightly to his chest. Hastily, he pushed his way through the meager chain link barricade that separated the empty lot from the street. Two other guys were hot on his heels and I could see a glint off of the metal of guns in their hands.

"He's got the hard-drive!" one of them shouted. "He's with SHIELD!"

Well, at least that told me who was who and what was up at the hideout.

Shots were fired a moment later and the first guy took off down the street amid a bunch of frightened screams and people scurrying for cover. The guy was probably as alone as I was, so I couldn't very well just leave him to the Hydra goons. My bow was out and I had an arrow notched quickly. The first Hydra goon didn't see it coming and was down with an arrow in his neck before he could pop off another shot.

That bought the agent a little bit of space and he scurried around the corner and on to Malcolm X Boulevard. I rappelled down the side of the building and landed on a rooftop only three stories up, just below it, following the chase around the corner. Being broad daylight on a busy street with storefronts and a lot of passing cars, I couldn't get a clear shot at the other Hydra goon from up there. I needed to get on the ground and run interference. There was a little wall banner just below me and I was able to use it to slow a jump to the sidewalk, ripping it down its length as I descended. Sorry Staples. Didn't mean to.

The agent hadn't fired back at all. Either he was unarmed, or he didn't have any ammo left. Either way, it was a lousy position to be in during a shootout. He needed cover, so I poured on speed and chased after him, letting off a smoke screen arrow between me and the Hydra goon. The agent was still running at a tear, but turned his head back just in time to see me after the smoke screen got up. I motioned to him to keep going and make for cover, somewhere out of sight. There weren't a whole lot of options, so we used the cover of the smoke screen to dart across 125th amid a lot of angry car horns and tire skids. There was a construction site on the other side of the street and we were able to hop the fence and land behind a solid, green barrier, out of sight, though hardly safe. The agent paused to catch his breath as I landed next to him.

"Jesus, where the hell did you come from?" he asked me. "Not that I'm ungrateful."

"Up top," I replied, keeping my voice low, "I was watching the safehouse, hoping Hydra hadn't gotten to it."

"Well, I can say with some certainty that they have," the agent replied, sticking out a hand, "Gabriel Reed, level 2, from the Manhattan office."

"Clint Barton, level 7, Triskelion," I replied, giving his hand a quick shake.

"The Hawkeye?" Reed asked, his eyes going wide. "Damn, I'm in it deep. What the hell you doing here?"

"Running. You?"

"Well, I _was_ trying to keep an eye on them and sabotage from the inside," Reed replied, "but that ship's kinda sailed, as you can probably tell."

"What's in the bag?" I asked.

"Hard drive," said Reed, "it's got locations of a bunch of newer SHIELD hideouts along the eastern seaboard. Figured, if any of them were safe, they wouldn't be for long if that info stayed in Hydra's hands."

I held up a hand when I heard voices on the street on the other side of the construction barrier.

"Damn it, lost him!" exclaimed one.

"They couldn't have gotten far," said another.

"How can one, unarmed man get away from you idiots?" exclaimed a third voice, angrily.

I recognized that one. It was Wentworth again.

"He's not alone, ma'am," said the first voice, "that smoke screen came from this."

"The hell, man, is that an arrow?" said the second voice.

That's the problem with doing a job with a unique weapon. Everyone knows it's you. But usually, the advantages I get from my bow far outweigh that drawback. I don't suck with a gun, that's for sure, but bullets aren't as versatile as my own home-brew arrows. Explosives, grappling hooks, EMPs, sonics; I can put just about anything in an arrow head. I even experimented with a boomerang arrow, once.

Seriously! Because... well... _boomerangs_!

"I know you're here, Barton!" Wentworth shouted. "And if you had a shot on me, you would have taken it by now! You're trapped! Surrender and we might be able to talk!"

"I wouldn't," Reed whispered to me.

"No kiddin'," I whispered back. I pulled a spare piece out of a back holster and handed it to Reed. "We're going to have to fight our way past 'em. How many are there?"

"Not counting the one you took out already? Wentworth and three others, all level two field agents."

This wasn't going to be easy. There weren't a lot of options. Glancing around quickly, I realized that our best bet was to make across the construction site and head for 124th.

"All right, I'm going to give us some cover," I said, notching another smoke arrow, "but that's gonna give 'em our current position. Get across the construction site and run. I'll be right behind you."

Reed nodded, flicking the safety off my spare piece.

I turned and fired the smoke arrow into the construction site. It went off, spreading a patch of smoke that immediately spread and spilled over the construction barrier. We took off at a run straight through it.

"The construction site!" Wentworth shouted. "You! Head them off!"

The race was on. I used the cover of the smoke and a pile of bricks to vault above the construction barrier long enough to take out one of the goons. I had to duck a few bullets after that as they tore through the barrier. Reed made for 124th street as fast as his legs would go and it wasn't long before I heard gunshots through the smoke ahead of me. By the time I reached the street and came out of the smoke, I found that I was behind one of the Hydra goons, chasing after Reed. I put an arrow through the back of his head on the run, dropping him. The third Hydra goon was behind me and I turned and let off a flashbomb right as his feet. Wentworth was nowhere in sight, yet, and I figured she was probably checking 125th to make sure we didn't double back.

We headed east on 124th, ducking into a backlot about half way up the first block. Reed had slowed somewhat and I had been able to catch up to him. We found a fire escape behind one of the buildings and were able to climb up it to make for the rooftops.

As soon as we got up there and out of sight, Reed leaned back against a wall, breathing shallow and fast, holding a hand to his side.

"C'mon, we gotta move!" I said.

"I uh... I don't think so," Reed said, pulling his hand away from his side to show a thick coating of blood. I looked to his side and saw a large patch of dark red blossoming on his shirt. His legs gave way under him a moment later and he tumbled to the gravel-covered rooftop and blood immediately began pooling under him.

"Hey, hey, hey," I breathed out, trying to get at the wound and see what I could do. The answer? Not much. The bullet wound was through-and-through and it looked like it would have passed just inside the liver. From the amount of blood welling up, I figured it had severed the artery feeding the liver on the left. He was bleeding out fast and there was nothing I could do.

I heard sirens blaring, approaching quickly. Reed shoved my spare piece back into my hands and followed it up with his bag. "Go! Get this outta here!" he gasped out. "You can't help me," he said when I hesitated, "just go! Now!"

I knew he was right. He was losing blood way too fast. I couldn't make it out of the area on the rooftops while carrying him and I couldn't give myself up to the cops for his sake without risking the Hydra goons finding us, either. By the time he'd be found, he would be dead. And he knew it. Knowing that mine would be the last face he would see, I didn't have any words that were adequate. I could only nod, and follow his wishes.

"Give 'em hell, Avenger!" I heard him say as I headed off.

Quickly and keeping out of sight, I vaulted from rooftop to rooftop, hearing the echoes of the sirens fade behind me.

* * *

Funny thing about adrenaline. It keeps you going, makes you sharp, even when you should be limp as a wet noodle and blunt as a spoon. It slows down time, makes you see detail. Enough of it in your system and some people can actually go into sensory overload. Me? I'd spent so much of my life on an adrenaline high I knew how to use those effects. Have to, in order to keep up with the Avengers.

The crash when it wears off, though. That sucks major balls. And it's worse when you're tired because you have farther to fall. For the second time in as many days, I found myself in the tunnels of a subway, avoiding being seen as I moved around the city. It was dark and warm down there and after about a half an hour my adrenaline rush wore off big-time. I couldn't help it. I needed a breather, just a moment to collect myself, maybe shove an MRE and some water in my mouth.

I found a maintenance access doorway somewhere on the red line as I headed south and flopped down in it, out of the way of any passing trains and prying eyes. The world was kinda swimming around my head, so I closed my eyes and let it for a moment. I desperately wanted to just stay there for a while, but I knew I had to keep moving. A couple minutes later, I forced my eyes back open and got a bottle of water and an MRE out of my pack.

I couldn't get my mind to quiet down. You know how they say that you are your own worst critic? Well, that feeling is about a hundred times worse when you work in life-and-death situations. And right now, my mind was cussing me out for failing to save Reed, failing to keep SHIELD from falling, failing to get to Cap and Natasha... it went round and round in a swirl that made me dizzy and hopeless.

Dammit, I'm an Avenger! I should be able to save one damn agent from a handful of pissed off Hydra bad guys who are on the run themselves!

There had been a few times, back home with Laura and the kids, where I had broken down in the middle of the night with similar thoughts running around in my head. The quiet life on the farm was both a blessing and curse, that way. No running from bad guys to exhaust you and threaten your life every five minutes, but no running from bad guys to distract you from all the things you screwed up, either.

Laura was the only thing that could quiet those thoughts. She would sit up in bed with me and rub my shoulders and the back of my neck, wiping away the nightmares and whispering that they didn't matter, that I was a good person, no matter what my own demons said. The time after Loki was the worst, but she just pushed all that aside like cleaning a window, making everything clear. She would have been able to stop these thoughts with a caress of her hand and a kiss.

But she wasn't there. And thank God for that! I had to keep her away from all this, safe. If I lost her and the kids, I know I would go completely bat-shit insane. So, for sanity's sake, for those moments of pure peace, I put up with the slings and arrows when she wasn't with me.

I'm not sure when I had taken it out, but I found myself looking at the picture of Laura and the kids that I kept in my jacket. My hands were trembling a little. I wanted to be with them. I _needed_ to be with them. Ultimately, that was what got me back on my feet again.

My heart thus re-armored, I moved on, into the darkness.

* * *

I wandered the subway tunnels until darkness fell up top again. I got a little turned around, since one tunnel looks a lot like another down there. Somehow, I ended up on the blue line and that dumped me out on 42nd and 50th, just on the edge of Hell's Kitchen. It took me walking a few blocks to get my bearings.

Stark Tower was on the eastern side of Midtown, one of the larger buildings that broke up 44th street. By the time I was able to figure out which direction I had to go, I figured out that I had gone completely the wrong way. It was also right around that time that I ran smack into a couple of cop cars, sitting on the street. They had apparently upped their visible presence and I figured it was in light of everything that had happened. I tried to continue to look like I belonged there, uncaring of them, as I walked down 9th avenue.

I passed a small laundromat and through the window, I saw a news broadcast. The news report was showing police sketches and in a flash, I realized that the report was about the shootout that had killed Reed. One of the sketches looked a lot like me. No name, though, and they were saying it was a "person of interest." But it was still a hell of a complication.

My feet never broke stride and within a few seconds, I was only steps from the two cops hanging out on the sidewalk near their cars. One of them caught my eye and I had to look like it didn't matter to me, so I give him a weak smile and a nod in greeting and kept going on. For a moment he looked like he was going to do the same and move on, but his brow furrowed a moment later, just as I passed right by him. As soon as the two cops were behind me, I immediately had that tingle in the back of my head again. I forced my pace not to change, hoping that they would dismiss whatever spark of recognition had just flitted through their minds.

And then, I heard one of them talking on their radio, requesting backup.

There was nothing for it. I had to move. I took off at a run, careening around the corner on to 46th street. I heard the two cops yell for me to stop, then shout something into their radios about being in pursuit.

Why not just let them catch me, you're asking? Surely Hydra would have had a hard time getting to me if I was in a jail cell, right? Well, see, Hydra has this reputation of having eyes and ears everywhere. They also didn't give a crap about collateral damage. If I turned up in a local precinct, odds were good I would just be fish in a barrel and several innocent boys-in-blue would go to the great beyond with me. It sounds like a lame excuse, but I was trying to protect the cops from getting caught in the crossfire.

Just past the end of the block on 46th, I spotted a fire escape that I had a chance of reaching, just next to a big yellow sign for a place called Ai's Sushi which proclaimed itself to be a "Japanese food place."

Don't know why that detail stuck with me. It just did.

There was a little wrought-iron fence just below the fire escape that I was able to kick off and jump up. The ladder pulled down with my weight, but I was already climbing it, swinging over onto the fire escape stairs and running up. Below me, I heard the cops shouting to each other, coordinating the best way to cut me off. But rooftops are my domain. Those every-day gumshoes wouldn't have a chance of catching me, especially in the dark. Once at the top most level of the fire escape, I leaped to the one next door, then took a running jump and grabbed the bottom edge of one next to that that was on the roof level. It only took a couple of seconds to pull myself up and land on the roof.

Out of sight of the cops, I vaulted from building to building along 9th. I circled around, keeping to the shadows and managed to leave them far behind. I headed north again, hopping rooftop to rooftop. It was on the rooftops of the block between 49th and 48th that things got _really_ weird.

I had just landed on one rooftop that was a story lower than both the last and the next, looking for ways I could parkour up to the next one. The sirens were a few blocks distant now, but I still wanted a little more space before I was back on my way to Midtown.

Something made me stop, that tingle again. The only light on the rooftop was from light pollution, so I used my ears more than my eyes. I had my bow in my hand a moment later and slowly drew a standard arrow from my quiver.

And then, there was a thump of feet landing behind me. The guy was fast. By the time I had turned around to aim at the noise, he was already inside the point of my arrow. Muscle memory made me release it anyway and it flew past the guy's ear to stick in the brickwork beyond. At nearly the same instant, the guy was swinging a fist at my face. I danced aside of it, but suddenly found my legs swept out from under me. I landed hard on my back, feeling my injured rib protesting vehemently. I ignored it and rolled to the side, the guy's fist landing in the gravel of the roof where my head had been. I had just enough time to kip up to block the guy's kick. We went blow for blow for several exchanges, neither of us landing a hit. Finally, we swung around in a tangle of limbs, sending us each skidding in opposite directions, breathing hard.

I had a moment to take stock of the guy. He was a little taller than me, dressed all in black, including faceless mask. He was clearly alert to my movements, but didn't seem to be looking _at_ me, per se. It was kinda creepy.

"Why are you running from the cops in my city?" the guy said gruffly.

" _Your_ city? What, Hydra run out of funds for actual clothes?" I quipped back. "They got you runnin' around in your pajamas, now?"

"I'm not Hydra," he responded.

"Right, and this is _your_ city," I bit back sarcastically.

"I won't let you hurt anyone," he said, launching himself at me again.

It wasn't quite her style, but it was a fight Nat would have been impressed with. The guy was clearly highly trained in a number of martial arts and knew parkour pretty well. He also didn't seem to have to see me to know where I was, which made life really hard. Our deadly dance took us up to the next roof top and across it. I'd like to be able to say that the whole thing had ultimately gone the way I had intended, but I'd be lying if I said that flying off the side of the building had been in my play book. To this day, I'm still not sure how the guy flipped me. It happened that fast.

To my surprise, I didn't die in the four-story fall. I landed instead in a dumpster full of trash. Really smelly trash. I heard a crack and felt my busted rib give way on impact. I was pretty sure another one had given way, too. And I could feel numerous stings and lacerations from things that had sliced into me. The fall stunned me for a long moment and it was only the sound of leaves rustling in a nearby tree and feet hitting the ground that snapped me out of it. I scrambled for my bow as I heard footsteps approach the dumpster. As soon as I thought the guy was close, I popped up and dropped a flash bomb arrow right on the ground between him and the dumpster. He gave a yelp of surprise and I took the moment to haul myself over the far edge.

I hit the ground running, taking off into the back alley of the block. The guy was hot on my heels, as if he wasn't blinded by the flash at all. I was slowed a little, feeling pressure on my side where my ribs were flopping around loose. I rounded a corner, hoping for an alley back out to the street, but getting no luck there. It was just a featureless brick wall of a dead end. I quickly pulled a grappling arrow and fired it off. It anchored above me and I tripped the mechanism to reel me up the cable only to find the guy's arms around my middle a second later, grinding my aching ribs together. We went back up to the roof together, rolling onto flat surface in a tangle. My bow went skittering away and the guy ended up on top, holding a pair of batons over my throat.

"Stay down!" he barked. "Like I said, this is my city. Now, why'd you say I was Hydra?"

"Well, you're not a cop," I replied through my clenched teeth, "and Hydra's the only other ones after me at this particular moment."

"I'm not Hydra!"

"Yeah? So what do I call you, New York Ninja?"

"Some call me the Devil of Hell's Kitchen," he replied, "but frankly, I don't really give a damn what you call me. I'm not letting you start trouble here."

"Hey, you attacked me. I'm just passing through," I said.

"Yeah, while running from the cops," he bit back, "give me one good reason why I shouldn't knock your lights out and dump you off to them."

He had a point. And I didn't have much to say in reply to that except the lamest words I could have possibly said at that moment.

"Uhh... I'm an Avenger?"

He looked at me like Cthulu had just crawled out of my mouth. I suppose I would have done the same if I had been in his shoes. But he did seem to focus on me for a moment.

"You're the archer?" He asked. "The one they call Hawkeye?"

"That is who you are presently, sitting on, yes," I ground out, feeling the ache in my ribs growing.

He focused on me without really looking at me again, his head tilting slightly. "You're not lying," he said, sounding amazed.

"Glad we both know that! Would you get off!?"

Finally the Devil rolled off of me, putting away his batons, and standing back to give me some room. With a groan, I rolled over, one hand holding my side and the other pushing me up.

"This city owes you a debt," the Devil said as I climbed to my feet.

"Yeah, well," I said, wandering over to pick up my bow, "it would be nice for it to remember that because this city's not treating me very well today. The hell's your deal, anyway?"

"Tired of hearing the violence and doing nothing."

"Great," I bit out, "vigilante. Perfect. Well you got skills, I'll give you that."

"Files that came out yesterday say the Avengers were a SHIELD project," said the Devil, "is that why Hydra's after you?"

"No, they're after me because I'm a SHIELD agent and I hit them in the futzing eye," I said, probably sounding more insulted than I should have. "Frankly, I've got bigger fish to fry than you. So how about we go our separate ways and don't bother each other any more."

"I'll do you one better," said the Devil, "you're being tracked. I'll help get them off your back."

"Oh, you will, huh?" I said. "And just why would you do that for me?"

He gave a shrug. "Like I said," he replied, "this city owes you. And like _you_ said, it seems to have forgotten. Someone's gotta step up."

"Oh, hell," I said, scrubbing my face with a hand and looking skyward, "why not? I can't be choosy, anyway. You got something in mind?"

* * *

The so-called Devil of Hell's Kitchen was really a creepy kinda guy. He never seemed to look _at_ me so much as _through_ me. And that's _if_ he could see through that stupid mask at all. It was really, really disconcerting. He also never seemed to have to be looking at something to know it was there. And the way he moved around and had little regard for his health... it made me wonder if he was some kind of enhanced. It just wasn't possible for a normal person to do what he did.

He was about as good on the rooftops as I was, which was pretty nice. I sure as hell didn't want to be seen on the street with a guy wearing black pajamas and a mask and he probably didn't want to be seen on the street with a guy who looked like a police sketch. So it worked out pretty well.

We ended up on a tall building on the corner of 43rd and 10th. We had a long conversation about what was going on. It was a little like the conversations I had had with Sitwell a couple days ago, where we were both trying to get more information than the other was willing to give. I never really did get any insight into who this guy really was or how he did what he did. But his motives seemed genuine and it didn't sound like I needed to worry about him going off the reservation and beating someone to death. For a vigilante wearing a mask, he was surprisingly reasonable and grounded.

Like I said. My day got weird.

He told me he had been watching me since my run from the cops. Apparently, he had _heard_ the cops calling after me to stop, though he wouldn't say where he was at the time and I don't remember anywhere he might have been hiding. Shortly after that, a woman had begun to follow me as well, using a harness and other climbing gear to move along rooftops as well, though she clearly wasn't as good at it as he or I. This woman also seemed to be avoiding the cops, very carefully.

I knew there was only one person this could be; Wentworth. She was the only one who would be chasing after me who would know enough to constantly be seeking me on the rooftops. She knew enough about how I operated to check for me there, though she likely had trouble keeping up with me. Clearly, the woman was out for blood.

I filled the Devil in on Wentworth and my background with her, that she was apparently a Hydra agent and was until the last couple days known only as a scientist. He had a lot of the same questions that I did; why was she, of all people, in the field, chasing a highly-trained SHIELD operative? And why did a scientist seem to carry the authority that Wentworth did? I didn't have any answers to those questions myself, but they were certainly relevant.

We waited atop the building for several hours. Between his ears and my eyes, we had the area covered. I downed some more ibuprofen, which seemed to be what I was living off of the past couple days. The ache in my ribs receded a little, but it was still pretty intense.

It was about half past midnight that the Devil's head cocked a little. "They're coming," he said.

"Where?" I asked, joining him near the edge of the building he was standing next to. He pointed, not moving his eyes that direction. I was still able to follow his direction exactly. About a block away, six figures were creeping over the rooftops, moving our direction, using grappling hooks and other climbing gear to make their way more easily. "Wentworth brought more friends. I'm flattered."

"You draw 'em in," said the Devil, moving to the nearby wall that marked the end of a portion of the roof one more level up. He sprang up on an AC unit and landed in the shadows, out of sight.

"With pleasure," I said, notching an arrow on my bow and lining up a shot. I let out a breath and let loose the arrow a moment later. It sailed down and landed right in the middle of Wentworth's team, spewing gas in all directions in an expanding cloud. All six of them began coughing and came to a halt, trying to clear their eyes and looking around for the source of the arrow. One of the flunkies pointed up at my direction and then they started moving again.

I stood back from the ledge as six grappling hooks shot up from far below and hooked over the side of the building. Their cables went taught as they began to make their way up the side of the building. As soon as the first of them showed his face over the edge, I let off a smoke arrow and started moving, readying another arrow. As soon as the first of the goons emerged from the smoke, I let fly and the arrow lodged in his throat. Three others came out of the smoke all at once and rushed for me together.

These guys were better than Wentworth's last lot up in Harlem had been. They actually used, you know, tactics. As soon as I had taken aim at one of them, the other two split off left and right. I was already back up against the wall, so I didn't have any more space. I was just about to let fly another arrow when a black blur dropped down on the guy I was aiming at. The Devil threw a punch right across his face and the guy dropped, unconscious.

The other two were on top of me now and I had to go hand to hand, using my bow as a quarter staff. Yes, I'm well aware of the natural pun, there and that's why I chose "quarter."

Wentworth and her last goon had gotten up to the top of the building now and the goon was rushing in to join the fray. The Devil joined me on my right and in short order we were back-to-back with the three remaining goons circling us and Wentworth looking on.

"Well, Agent Barton," she said, "so you've found yourself another friend here in New York. Shame what happened to your last one. Did you tell this guy."

"He did," the Devil answered, "you're a murderer, lady, and I don't take kindly to that in my city."

"Again with the 'your city' stuff," I mumbled to him.

Fighting back-to-back is a romantic idea. You see it all the time in TV shows, movies, books, comics, and everything else. It makes for an awesome visual, but let me tell you, it makes for a lousy time in a fight. If you and your partner are back to back, it means you've been flanked or surrounded and that's a terrible position to be in. Fortunately, the Devil and I were both good enough to hold our own, on the defensive, but it also meant we weren't making any progress.

"Gotta break this up," I bit out over my shoulder between blocks.

"You go take care of Wentworth," said the Devil, "I got these three."

With that, he dropped into a spin, kicking his legs out. I managed to jump over it at the last second and the three goons each took a couple steps back.

The space that gave me allowed me to step inside of a punch on one of the goons, grabbing his arm and pulling him off his balance. He went tumbling toward the Devil and the other two goons, leaving me open to go after Wentworth.

She was in motion immediately, giving the Devil and his opponents a wide berth as she ran toward the roof on the other side of the building. As she went, she fiddled in a pouch on her belt for something. Before I could get a shot off, she was around the corner, out of my line of sight. I chased after her and rounded the corner just in time to see her remove a syringe from her arm and drop it on the ground.

The look in her eye was not good.

With a yell, she threw herself at me. She was suddenly impossibly fast and dodged the arrow I loosed at her with uncanny speed. As her fist drove into my right kidney, it occurred to me that she had just juiced, somehow, because that was _not_ a normal punch. My bow went skittering off somewhere as I bounced back a couple steps. Wentworth was on me again, backhanding me in my left eye. I swore I heard something crunch a bit as my head whipped around, spinning me to the ground as my head swam.

She allowed herself a moment to gloat, backing off as I crawled to my feet. "Now we'll see who's the superior agent," she crowed.

"Lady, either that's the fastest acting steroid on the planet," I said, "or you've been using your genetic research for naughty stuff."

"The endless pursuit of another super soldier," she said, "others are working on the same, but I've managed to make a version that is a little more stable. Sadly, the effects are only temporary. So you'll have to excuse me for getting down to business."

"Bring it, lady," I said, setting my feet wide and bracing for her attack.

She charged at me again and I danced out of the way at the last moment. She had some reach on me, so I moved to stay out of the no-mans-land, that interval where she could reach me and I couldn't reach her. Putting some of the AC and exhaust units that were on the roof between us, I maneuvered around, putting my stronger left hand where it could strike while her stronger right hand was out of the way. I landed a few punches, but she seemed to shrug them off.

It wasn't good. I was taking a lot of hits and she was just shrugging off hers. I couldn't keep going like that. I needed to play to my strength and that meant getting my bow back and fighting at a distance. As we were fighting, I spotted it a ways off behind me. I risked a roundhouse kick at her sending her back a few steps, then turned and dove for the bow, rolling back to my feet again. Once again, though, Wentworth was on top of me and had me in a hold, throwing me over her shoulder. I crashed head-first into one of the AC units and saw stars.

"We found out what you did, you know," she said as I painfully got back up and spat blood out of my mouth, "we know that you were the one who got the server blades to Hill. Captain Rogers may have been the one to set them in the Helicarriers, but you gave him the opportunity. Hydra was exposed because of you!"

"Glad to be of service," I quipped. Probably not my best choice of words just then. She gave an enraged yell and came at me again, fists flying.

I still hadn't shaken off the blow to my head and she took every advantage of my slower speed. She landed a series of blows to my stomach, spreading an ache all across my abdomen. Then, with a series of kicks and throws, she got me closer to the edge of the building. I fumbled with an arrow, trying to draw one, but she charged me, sending me tumbling over the side.

It was a long way down and she had hit me hard enough to send me flying out a couple of yards. Switching tactics, I reached for a grapple arrow and let it fly as I fell. The line went taught and I triggered the mechanism to reel me in, bracing for the inevitable impact against the side of the building. Just as I did, though, Wentworth grabbed on to the arrow and yanked it loose. I continued sailing backward into the open air.

The only thing that saved my ass was that I was falling toward the top of one of those air-pressure supported sports domes. I knew there would be a bit of give, but even so, it was still going to hurt. As I landed, I felt a blinding pain in my left ankle. It must have taken most of my weight. I was pretty sure I heard it snap. It wasn't exactly a picnic for the rest of my body, either. I'm pretty sure I blacked out for a second because the next thing I remember, I was sliding off the side of the dome and tumbling to a heap on the concrete edge of the arena's roof.

I laid there thoroughly stunned for a long while. I could hear the zip of a cable as Wentworth descended on her own grapple and landed next to me. I couldn't even make my limbs move as she stood over me and hauled me up by my shirt.

"It is a shame," she said, "I had hoped to be able to study you a little, find out what it is in your genetic makeup that makes you such a good shot. But you are too much of a nuisance to leave alive."

I finally found my limbs and moved to throw a punch across her face. She grabbed my fist and spun me around, pulling my arm around to my back and up. I felt a nauseating pop in my shoulder and a new batch of blinding pain came a second later. With a kick to my back, she dropped me back to the concrete roof. I tried to get up, but just couldn't find my feet. I saw Wentworth pull a knife out of a sheath on her belt and she charged at me, holding it viciously.

In a desperate last-ditch effort, I kicked my legs out and planted them in her chest as she got near enough, using her forward momentum against her. She went over the side of the roof, tumbling down to the ground four stories below. I didn't hear anything after that, so I hauled myself up with my one good arm and looked over the side of the building.

Wentworth was below, motionless, a bright red patch blossoming from her chest and the hilt of her knife sticking out of it.

Utterly spent, I flopped on to my back, breathing hard and feeling sensation seep out of my dislocated arm. I must have blacked out for a moment again because the next thing I knew, the Devil was crouching next to me. He looked like he had some pretty nasty bruises and scrapes, but wasn't too much the worse for wear.

"Hey, you alive?" he asked.

"Oh, that sucked balls," I moaned out.

"Hell of a drop, there," he said, getting under my uninjured shoulder and helping me sit up. "We're going to need to set that," he continued, gesturing to my dislocated shoulder, "here. Brace yourself." Before I could protest, he grabbed my wrist and gave a fast tug. Fire spread across my shoulder and I heard it pop again. I'm not ashamed to say that I let out a small scream. But once the fire cooled, I began to regain feeling in my arm.

I sat there for another long moment, just breathing and trying to get my bearings.

"You need to get patched up," the Devil said, "I know someone who-"

"No, no," I said, shaking my head, "I can't get anyone else involved. There's still a lot of Hydra out there, probably lookin' for me. It's too dangerous." I held out my good hand. "Just get me on my feet."

"That one's broken, you know," he replied.

"I am painfully aware," I said, flailing my hand a little, "c'mon."

The Devil looked at me a little skeptically, then gave a shrug and pulled me up to my feet. I gave a groan as pain flared in my abdomen and on my left ankle. For a moment, I wobbled and the Devil put a hand on my shoulder to steady me.

"I hope you've got a plan," he said.

"Yeah, same plan I had when I came here," I said through clenched teeth, "I know one place that's safe and I need to get there."

"Where?"

Silently, I looked at him, hoping that my rapidly swelling eye would still allow him to see the look I was giving him. No way I was telling a complete stranger where I was going.

"Can you at least tell me how far it is?"

"Nope," I replied with a shake of my head, "look, appreciate the help, pal, but I need to keep out of sight and get to my safe house. And given that we just took out six people, we'll probably want to scatter."

"Actually, mine are just unconscious," he said, "yours is the only one that's dead."

"What the hell are you?" I asked him, unbelieving.

"Like I said, I'm the Devil of Hell's Kitchen," he replied, "if you really feel so strongly about splitting up, it's no skin off my teeth. I'll see to it that those guys up top are found by the right authorities. Don't keel over."

With that, he took a running start toward the edge of the building and into the alley below. He jumped back and forth between the two buildings until he landed on the ground and took off running. I watched him go for a few moments.

"Futzing freak of nature," I mumbled, then steeled myself for the long walk to Stark Tower. I shuffled off at a snail's pace, each step agony. I knew it was going to take me a long time to make it.

* * *

Somehow, I'm not real clear on the details, I managed to drag my ass to Stark Tower. I chose a back entrance rather than coming in the direct way. It was in an alley, away from most prying eyes. I figured it was my best bet to get in under the Radar.

Light was beginning to show in the sky above, but it was still dark on the streets of Manhattan. I'm not entirely sure what time it was or how many of the stars I could see were real.

As I stumbled up the few steps to the alley entrance, a bright light flashed on above me thoroughly destroying my night-vision.

"Motion detected," a voice primly announced from a small speaker by the door, "please identify yourself."

JARVIS, Stark's weirdly personable computer. It reminded me of a passage from a book I once read; your plastic pal who's fun to be with, or something.

Leaning against the door frame a little more heavily than I would care to admit, I brought my face close to the panel where I knew there was a camera.

"Hawkeye," I ground out, "I need to talk to Stark, JARVIS, get him on the line and tell him I'm here."

"Voice pattern verified," the computer responded and I heard an audible click from the door lock. "Welcome, Agent Barton. You are on Mister Stark's list of approved visitors. Please do come in."

"Really?" I asked, yanking on the door handle and not looking a gift horse in the mouth as I stumbled inside. "When'd that happen?"

"Just after the Battle of New York," JARVIS replied as I closed the door and leaned against the wall. A recording came on the speaker, then, Stark's voice.

" _Any time you guys wanna drop by, you're welcome. After all, we're the Avengers, now_."

"Well, not that I'm ungrateful," I said, starting to shuffle toward the service elevator, "but isn't that kinda literal?"

There was no response.

As I flopped into the elevator, I jarred my busted ankle and collapsed against the wall, letting out a small yelp.

"Agent Barton," JARVIS came on the speaker again, "my sensors indicate that you are in physical distress."

"No kidding!" I ground out.

"Are you in need of medical assistance?"

"No, no, not yet" I breathed out, "gotta talk to Stark first. Is he awake?"

"Mister Stark has yet to sleep this evening. He is in his workshop. I will let him know you will meet him in the sitting room."

"Isn't it morning?"

"The time is 4:12 AM."

"Thanks."

The elevator took an agonizing amount of time to get to the penthouse floors. I leaned against the wall, feeling it move and concentrating on staying vertical. Stars continued to zip in and out of the edges of my vision. I was getting to my limit. The good news was that I hardly felt the rib any more. The bad news was, from the way my shoulder was feeling, I was pretty sure the bow I was carrying around on my back was going to be decorative for the next couple months.

At last the elevator lurched to a halt and the doors opened on the main floor of Stark's penthouse. The place is all glass and metal and windows and has a magnificent view of New York. I saw none of that at the moment, since I had to look down at my shuffling feet to make sure I didn't fall over. There was a swanky black leather sofa not too far from the bar. As I wobbled toward it, I fumbled for the buckle that held my quiver in place and let it fall to the floor just behind it. Finally, I was able to flop into the sofa, allowing some sweet relief to my beach-ball sized ankle. The stars receded somewhat as I let my head fall back onto the leather.

"JARVIS, we need to have a little talk about the approved visitors list," I heard Stark's voice echo up from the stairs to his workshop, "drop by any time generally means call first so it's not four in the mor-"

He stopped short as he came around the corner and caught sight of me, staring like a gaping fish.

"Ning," he finished, then waved a finger in the air the way he does when he's searching for something snappy to say. "Unless it's a situation like this."

"Sorry," I slurred out as he slowly paced toward me, "woulda called first but my schedule got a little full." My damned shoulder chose right then to start throbbing and I couldn't stifle the grimace. "I could use some help."

"Uh, yeah," Stark said finally stopping in front of me, looking up and down. I must have looked a sight because it was several seconds before the world's foremost expert in gab found anything to say. "What the hell happened do you, Barton? You look like shit."

"Feels worse," I replied, shifting a little to ease some pressure on my shoulder. "Cap hit me. Then I fought with a juiced-up Hydra psychopath. Then I fell off a building in Hell's Kitchen."

"Looks pretty bad," Stark said, "JARVIS, give me a reading. What's he look like?"

"Agent Barton's injuries are extensive," JARVIS said, "fractured left ankle, bruised kidney, two broken ribs, some minor internal bleeding which is already slowed to non-threatening levels, a recently-dislocated shoulder with a torn rotator cuff, a possible concussion, hairline fracture of the left orbital socket, and a fever of 100.23 degrees."

Well, the fever was a surprise, anyway.

"Aw hell, JARVIS," I cracked, an odd feeling of euphoria setting it, for no apparent reason, "thought you said extensive."

"Tony?" came a voice from the next level up where I knew Stark's loft bedroom was. Footsteps descended the stairs, bare feet padding on the floor as Pepper Potts made the scene. "I heard voices down here. What's going-oh my god!"

"Whoops! Woke up the missus," I cracked, trying to give a smirk.

"My god! Clint?" Pepper said, immediately coming over to the couch and lighting next to me. "What happened, what are you doing here?"

"Hey, Pepper," I slurred out as her hand gently landed on my not-so-injured shoulder, "kinda had a bad day at work." I rolled my head back over to look at Stark. "Could use a place to lay low for a few days. I lost the Hydra goons tracking me, so I doubt they know I'm here, but..." I lost the sentence as it was leaving my mouth and my eyes drifted shut. Vaguely, I felt Pepper's hand move from my shoulder to my forehead.

"Tony, he needs a hospital," she insisted.

I snapped my eyes open and shook my head as best I could in protest. "No, no, I can't turn up in an ER," I pressed, "not with Hydra looking for me. It'd put everyone there in the line of fire." Apparently, my body wasn't quite done betraying me yet because something caught in my lung and set me coughing. The stabbing pain in my ribs returned, sending white hot pain through me with every diaphragm contraction. I felt something wet on the corner of my mouth and Pepper gave a gasp. On reflex, I curled in around my abdomen, trying to make the terrible coughing stop. I felt four hands on me, keeping me from listing to one side or falling off the couch entirely.

"Easy enough to bring someone here," Stark said, uncomfortably close to my face, "JARVIS, make a call to Mercy General and get in touch with-"

"No!" I exclaimed, through the last of the coughs.

"Dammit, Barton!" Stark exclaimed. "I'm not going to let you croak on my couch!"

"Jesus, gimme a break, Stark!" I exclaimed, collapsing back into the couch again. "I know you've downloaded the file dump Cap and Nat put on the web, you know what's happening! This is the only place I've got, right now! No one can know I'm here! Anyone who does is in danger, too."

"Yeah, thanks for that, by the way," Stark groused.

"Oh please, like Iron Man can't take care of himself? C'mon, Stark, I thought you were a genius." Yeah, a low blow, I know, and not all that creative, either. But my vision was starting to go grey around the edges. What do you want from me? "Banner," I finally said, "Banner's still staying here, isn't he?"

"Really?" said Stark. "You wanna wake up the guy who turns into an unstoppable monster when he's stressed out of a deep sleep?"

I couldn't help but gasp at this point. My vision was starting to do that Bugs Bunny Hole thing, where it shrinks down to a little point before disappearing entirely. I could barely get the air out. "He's got the other guy, he's got it," I rambled, unable to stop myself, "only one I can trust, right now."

That was all I had in me. My vision finally completed its grey-out and I felt my eyes drift shut. I could hear things for a little while longer, though, so I heard Pepper pleading with me to stay awake and I knew that Stark instructed JARVIS to wake up Banner, gently. A warm mist drifted up around me, then, leeching away pain and finally allowing me entrance to the best darkness I had felt in a long, long time.

* * *

Things get pretty hazy after that and I don't remember much. Just foggy flashes here and there. There were a couple of times I thought I heard Natasha nearby and I remember red hair, but based on what Stark said later, it was probably Pepper looking in on me.

The next thing that I can clearly remember is the world fading back into existence around me, my body aching all over. I was laying in a hospital bed, the head inclined a little so I was sort of sitting up. My left arm was in a sling and there was a cast on my left leg. A pinch on the back of my hand told me an IV was there and the slightly swimmy quality of everything around me told me that I was probably on the good stuff.

Carefully, I turned my head to look around. A ways away, through a few layers of glass and over the edge of a mezzanine, I made out the skyline of New York City, so evidently I was still at Stark Tower. Banner was stretched out in a chair next to me, his head tilted back and eyes closed, a folded up newspaper on his chest and his glasses resting on a nearby table.

My back felt stiff, so I shifted a little, trying to get more comfortable. That was a mistake. A flare of pain traveled all the way down my abdomen, causing me to give a little whimper of surprise.

Banner was awake in an instant, snapping upright in his chair and hovering his hands over me to try and keep me in one place as the pain subsided. "Oh, hey, hey, hey," he exclaimed, "Clint? Be careful, don't move around too much. You actually with us this time?"

"Think so," I breathed out, settling back into the pillow and trying to swallow away the thickness of my tongue, "wha' happened?"

"Well, you've been in and out of consciousness for 34 hours," he replied, reaching for a cord with a switch on the end of it that was dangling from the side of the bed and pressing a button, "we were able to stitch you up and set your leg, but then your fever spiked to just over 104. Doctor Cho said you had some kind of an infection in one of the nastier cuts."

"Well, I did fall into a garbage bin, so..." I said, then something that Banner had said penetrated the fog. "Wait. Who's Doctor Cho?" I asked.

"That would be me," said a woman as she brushed into the room. She was a short, skinny little Asian chick in dress pants, a blouse, and a lab coat. Her face was kind of impossibly smooth, like she hadn't smiled in about ten years. She immediately picked up a chart and scribbled a few notes.

"Agent Clint Barton, this is Doctor Helen Cho," Banner said by way of introduction, "I called in a favor and Tony flew her in from South Korea."

"Thanks an' all, doc', but you really shouldn't be here," I said.

"Mister Barton, if I wasn't here you would most likely be dead, right now," she said, setting aside the chart and looking at me with that ridiculously matter-of-fact expression that doctors get when they feel like they've been insulted.

"Tony told me what you said before you passed out," Banner put in, obviously seeking to head off an argument, "and I'm flattered you think I'm that good. But I'm a geneticist and a bio-technician, not a medical doctor. I was out of my depth with... all this." He waved his hands to indicate pretty much all of me. "Helen helped me out a couple of times while I was on the run from the Hulk-Busters. She can be trusted."

"I'll be staying here in the tower for several days," Cho said, "Hydra will have as much chance of getting to me as they do of getting to you."

I gave a resigned sigh. "Well, what's the damage, doc?"

"The hairline fracture around your left eye should heal on its own," she said, "but you did sustain a concussion, so you might be a little loopy for a few days. We set your ribs back in place and from the looks of them you probably know the drill on them healing up. Your left ankle was a complete mess and we had to do some surgery to put it back together. You're now sporting a couple of brand new Stark Industries steel pins in it. It was incredibly stupid to walk on it, by the way. You'll need to keep that arm in a sling for a few weeks to keep tension off your shoulder. And you have a total of 47 stitches closing up various lacerations all over your body. The self-dissolving kind, so no one will need to put up with you to take them out. Is there anything that I've missed?"

I tried to find something witty to say in response, but her attitude had pretty well shut me down. I would later get to know Doctor Helen Cho a little better, learn when her gruff and logical exterior was hiding a more caring attitude that could handle jokes a little. But that first meeting - and the drugs I was on - pretty well kept me quiet.

"Uh, no," I mumbled, "I think that pretty much covers it."

"Good," she replied, "and one more thing, you're stuck in this bed for at least two days. I don't want you trying to move around too much until we're sure the internal bleeding has completely stopped."

Letting my head fall back into the pillow, I gave a groan of protest as Cho swept back out of the room.

"What are you, twelve?" Banner asked me after she left.

"Just please," I said, holding up my good hand, "just tell me you have a book or something for me to read. Maybe a nice long movie marathon?"

"Aha! He's coherent!" Stark's voice echoed off the walls as he came storming in a moment later. "Welcome back to the land of the living, gimpy! I was just coming up for my shift on Barton-watch and Helen told me you were awake."

"Barton-Watch?" I asked, incredulously.

"Yeah, there were a few times when you woke up that you weren't exactly with it," Banner said, his hand scrubbing at the back of his head, sheepishly, "Pepper was checking in on you the first time and said that having someone there was the only thing that seemed to calm you down."

"She set up a rotating schedule after that," Tony put in, "threatened me with... well, withholding... fun..."

I snorted a laugh. Laura had threatened me with the same on a couple of occasions. Earth's mightiest heroes, indeed! Our women have us wrapped around their little fingers.

"Not funny," Stark groused.

"Yes it is," I replied, immediately.

As Stark and Banner started to fill me in on the events of the last day and a half, and what they had heard of Cap and Nat and Hill and everything else, I settled into my pillow for a long haul. At least, with them around, I wasn't going to be bored.

* * *

I was in and out of it for a few days, after that. Banner and Cho kept me on the good stuff, saying I needed to get plenty of rest. Between naps, I caught sight of Nat at a Senate hearing on CSpan. There was only one word for her right then and that's "magnificent." I'm close to her, so I knew how tell-it-like-it-is she can be, but the rest of the world doesn't. The Senate, at least, learned pretty quick.

Banner and Cho finally let me get up and move around on day three. It was a given value of "move around," of course. Ever had a busted ankle and a dislocated shoulder on the same side? It makes using either crutches or a cane nearly impossible. Stark had thought ahead about that, though and had cobbled together some kind of a new boot-cast-doohicky out of some spare Iron Man suit parts he had laying around. One morning, he swept into the lab, told me to hold still, and pressed some kinda future-ish-injection-whatsits against my knee - which _hurt. A. Lot._ I might add - and rattled off something about the gadget interacting with my nerves, somehow.

The man's bedside manner is terrible. But, I gotta admit, the mechanical boot-cast was futzing amazing. Somehow, the mechanisms in it kept the weight off my ankle when I stood on that leg. It still hurt, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the breaks I had had before.

Crutches? Cane? Pfft. Whatever. I have Stark tech. Sure I had to put up with a few nicknames for a few days. Everything from "Dain the Ironfoot" to "Iron Lad the Sidekick." But it's a pretty sweet trade off, all things considered.

Stark and Pepper were pretty generous with their home. Told me I could stay as long as I needed and no one would know that I didn't want to know. They were mostly true to their word. The one time they weren't it wasn't really their fault and I didn't really mind, in the end. I mean, really, it's not like anyone in Hydra can match an Asgardian.

It was yet another morning that Stark was hosting me for breakfast. He had insisted on pouring some of his concoction of green smoothie stuff down my throat each morning. After about five days, I had actually started to like it a little. To this day, I still find I kinda like it. Some kind of weird form of Stockholm syndrome, I think. Whatever. Doesn't hurt anything. The day was clear and the New York skyline actually looked bright and sunny. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky, so it was a little beyond weird when the windows rattled with the repeal of thunder.

"Sir," JARVIS intoned a moment later, "Thor has just landed on the observation deck."

"The hell's he doing here?" I asked, looking up at Stark.

"Dunno. Last I heard he was still in Asgard," Stark replied, setting his tablet aside and getting out of his seat, "by all means, open the door for him, JARVIS."

Leaving the green sludge behind, I levered myself out of my seat at the bar and slowly followed, the boot-cast humming mechanically with each step. Thor was just clapping Stark on the shoulder in greeting when I made it to the doorway.

"It's good to see you, friend Stark!" he said, in that weird, archaic way of talking that he has. "You are looking well." His eyes drifted my way a moment later. "You look like you have seen better times, however, friend archer."

"Yeah, I think you're cute, too, Thor," I cracked with a chuckle, shuffling forward and extending my good hand. Thor grabbed it at the elbow in greeting. "How's things in Asgard?"

"Quiet, for now," Thor answered, "the Bifrost has been repaired, so I am once again free to travel back and forth between Asgard and Midgard."

"Not to sound grumpy to see you, Sparky," said Stark, motioning us all back inside, "but what brings you?"

"Heimdall informed me of some upheavals, here," Thor replied, "the fall of your SHEILD and the chaos that has followed. Glad I am that you have survived the fighting. What of Fury, and Maria Hill, and the Black Widow?"

"Last I heard, they're all right," I said, stiffly perching myself back on my previously vacated barstool.

"Wait, the news is saying that Fury's dead," Stark put in, "the web, too."

Blithely, I took a swig from my smoothie, giving a look to Stark in order to cover a smirk. I didn't bother to do that good a job.

"Well, that jackass," Stark said after a long, silent pause, "and to think I offered Hill a job. Does she know?"

"She told me," I replied.

"Huh. I feel... used. Wait, I feel like I shouldn't know that. Should I know that?"

"You gonna tell Hydra?"

"Well, no."

"Then who gives a crap?" I said. "It's not like I have the rest of SHIELD to answer to any more. I figure... with no one to tell me otherwise, I get to decide who I trust with what all on my own. Just don't be an idiot about it and I won't have to put an arrow in your head when you don't expect it."

"Deal," Stark replied.

"Your SHIELD did keep a great deal of secrets," Thor put in, "and Heimdall told me that many of them are out in the open, now. Also, that Hydra plundered a number of dangerous materials and artifacts."

"I've been contacting some of my back channels," said Stark with a grim nod, "the Vault, the Cube... they've all been looted."

I nodded in understanding. There was a long, uncomfortable pause while the three of us pondered the situation. Having any SHIELD facility looted by neo-Nazi terrorists was bad enough. But without SHIELD to track, recover, and protect those things... it was bad news, to say the least.

"That is why I have come," said Thor, "one object in particular concerns me most. Barton, do you know what has become of Loki's scepter?"

If I had had any mirth left at this situation, it would have dissolved right then and there. As it was, the thought of the blue glowie that Loki had used to get inside my head and screw with me made me want to toss my cookies. I had to close my eyes and count to ten before I trusted my voice to respond without shaking.

"Last I heard," I said, "it was at the Vault."

"Which means..." Stark started.

"Yeah," I interrupted him, my voice barely above a whisper, "Hydra's got it."

I couldn't look at anything but the top of the bar. It hit me harder than the punches I had taken from Wentworth a few days before. I wanted to crawl inside a dark hole and pull the ground in over me. God, I can't believe I hadn't thought of it! I deserved to be tossed off a building and I was beginning to wish that the Devil of Hell's Kitchen had missed the garbage bin.

At some point while I was wallowing in self-loathing, Stark had made his way to the other side of the bar. Three brandy glasses appeared on the counter and the one in front of me got filled first and highest. Without a word, I snagged the glass and knocked back the amber liquid, expecting a well-deserved burn, but feeling just a little warmth.

Heh. Stark always gets the good stuff.

I up-ended the glass on the bar and fell back into silence as Stark and Thor began to nurse their drinks. Without so much as acknowledging that it had been emptied, Stark turned my glass over and re-filled it.

He's a jerk, but he's our jerk, God bless him.

"I've been thinking about just this problem," he said, as he put the bottle back under the bar, "all that stuff out there and no SHIELD to get it back. Someone's gotta step up or Hydra's going to run rampant."

"Did you have something in mind?" Thor asked.

"Fury, Hill, and Coulson brought the Avengers together for a reason," Stark continued, casually leaning against the bar, "what was it he said? 'To fight the battles we never could.' Well, seems like SHIELD can't really fight any battles for itself, at least not for a long while. And it seems a shame to waste the Avengers on being a support group."

I looked up at Stark in disbelief. "You want to make the Avengers a... thing?"

Stark gave me a smirk and pointed a finger at me around his brandy glass. "I knew you'd be the first to sign up, Barton, and I accept."

"Now, wait a sec," I began.

"By Odin, that _i_ _s_ an idea!" Thor exclaimed, sounding a little disturbingly enthused. "If Loki and the Chitauri could not stand against us, what hope to those vermin of Hydra have?"

"Wait, hold on!" I tried again.

"Exactly!" Stark exclaimed, steamrolling my protests once again. "We can start with finding the Hypno-Glowstick. Get it back to Asgard, where it's probably safer. And after that-"

"Just hold it!" I all-but-shouted, throwing up my good hand in protest. I finally got their attention and they both turned blank looks on me. "To do all that, you'd need contacts, a research lab, secure transport, a... a fighting force..."

"I believe he intends us to be the fighting force," Thor put in, looking at me as if I had just donned his brother's horned helmet.

"And seriously, Barton, what is under your feet?" Stark shot back.

I couldn't help it. I put my head in my one good hand and leaned on the bar. "A research lab and secure transport," I admitted.

"Exactly," Stark pressed on, "and you, Hill, and Romanoff have the contacts, so, there we are."

"Oh, now you're volun-telling Natasha!" I exclaimed, sarcasm dripping from my voice. "That's going to go over like a lead balloon, Stark. And I suppose we'd all be working for you, huh?"

"Aw, Barton, your vote of confidence is heart-warming," Stark cracked back, "now, I admit that I am charming as hell, but I'm not really the boss type, for _this_ sorta thing. I was thinking more along the lines of Capsicle." He pushed off from the bar and wandered over to his hologram-projecting table. With a flourish, he turned it on and a wire-frame image of Stark Tower appeared, though it looked heavily remodeled. He had obviously been thinking about this for some time.

"And now you're volunteering Cap, too?"

"Hey, just because he hit you," Stark tossed back over at me, "holding grudges is bad for your health."

"He hit you?" Thor asked me. "Why did he hit you?"

"Long story," I replied around a sigh.

"Well, it seems like everything is properly in place," Thor agreed with a shrug.

"Oh god!" I moaned, put my head back in my hand. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. "I'm in the presence of madmen!"

And yet, I had to admit, there was a rising sense of excitement, almost dare I say it, a renewed sense of _purpose_ creeping into me. It was in-viable! It was outrageous! It was insane! And it sounded ten kinds of futzing _awesome_!

Stark, perhaps sensing my weakness, closed in for the kill, wandering closer to me like a shark closing in on prey. "C'mon, Barton, you know someone's gotta do it, why not us?" he said. "And I've read the original Avengers Initiative. I know that Coulson thought you should be a part of this. Besides, wouldn't you like to give Hydra a black eye or two for this whole past week?"

Now, that idea was really attractive. Everyone likes to think they're thinking about other people. It makes it all nobler and high-minded and shit. I'm not really sure what it says about me that Stark finally got me on board to avenge my own losses.

Well, guess that's why we're the Avengers.

I sighed heavily, rubbing my face with my good hand and looking to the sky. At last, I gave a chuckle and looked back at him, not quite believing that these words were about to come out of my mouth. "What the hell, who am I to argue with Coulson?" I said. "I'm out of a job and it's not like my skill set is all that marketable, anyway. What else am I gonna do? I'm in."

"Great!" Stark immediately said, as if any sort of pause would make me reconsider. He forged ahead. "I assume you can get in touch with Romanoff and from the looks of it she can get Steve. Banner and I have the science covered. Thor will be our Asgard liaison and he and Hulk will be our big muscle. I'll get Hill on board to work operations and we'll be all set."

"An excellent plan!" Thor agreed, clapping a hand on my uninjured shoulder. "May our enemies beware our wrath and the gates of Hel be prepared for the lamentations of our vanquished!"

"Oh god," I moaned once again, looking skyward.

"That's that, then!" Stark exclaimed, a child-like grin on his face. "From this moment on, this is no longer Stark Tower. It's Avengers Tower! Let's assemble the team!"

"Agreed!" Thor intoned, raising his brandy glass and knocking back the remainder of its contents and then up-ending it on the bar with a slam. "Assemble!"

So, that was that. There's not much else to tell about that week. That was what I was doing when Hydra toppled SHIELD. That's how the Avengers stepped up to the challenge. And we've been Avenging ever since, chasing Loki's scepter and giving as much grief to Hydra and other bad guys as we can.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Here I am, palling around with demi-gods, geniuses in invincible metal suits, super soldiers... and I've got a stick and a string from the paleolithic era. And yeah, there are days when it looks bad and feels worse. Laura worries, and we've never hidden my day job from Cooper and Lila, so there's that. But in the end, I doubt I'd have it any other way.

SHIELD was gone. That part of my life was over. They took me in at a pretty shitty part of my life when no one else would have me. They became a sort of weird family and now I didn't have that. But you know, the Avengers are kinda the same way. Just a bit weirder, really, if that's even possible.

Who am I kidding? Yeah, it sure as hell is possible! I mean, just look at us! We are futzing magnificent!

We're still tracking the Scepter. Hill said she's turned up some new intel about its location. Some little country in eastern Europe called Sokovia, I think. We're due to head out there tomorrow to kick some ass.

But enough about me. Go watch the news. It's gonna be great!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FROM THE EDITOR...
> 
> And that's that. I hope you all enjoyed. Just a few notes for you.
> 
> Deirdre Wentworth in the comics is a Hydra super villain known as Superia. The fact that she was equipped in a climbing harness is something of a nod to her costume in the comics. In my head, she's wearing black and the harness is yellow, but I couldn't quite bring myself to actually describe it that way. For some reason, Clint didn't think it was important.
> 
> This chapter also contains the other random plot bunny that popped into my head after watching Daredevil on Netflix (good series and I highly recommend it, by the way). With Matt Murdock hanging around New York, it occurred to me that he might know a thing or two about the Chitauri attack and the Avengers. That got me wondering how he would interact with them. As soon as I decided that Clint was going to need to go to Stark Tower, the plot bunny attacked and wouldn't let go. It was surprisingly fun to write and I finished that whole part in about a day or so.
> 
> In other news, my one and only reviewer as of this posting pointed out that we actually do know what Bobbi was doing during the fall of SHIELD. I... er... completely forgot about an entire episode of AoS. That's what I get for writing fic after seeing the second season of AoS only once. I may do a redux of chapter two at some point to make it AoS-compliant, because, well, I obsess about this stuff. But for now I'll keep things as-is because I like it and it's my fic. :-p
> 
> As always, remember; fic authors love feedback. Please review and thanks for reading!


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